Sick Day
by tempusterran
Summary: The Doctor falls ill with an alien flu, but stubbornly refuses to acknowledge his sickness. Martha tries not to lose her patience. Post-Blink.
1. Chapter One

Sick Day

The Doctor falls ill with an alien flu, but stubbornly refuses to acknowledge his sickness. Martha tries not to lose her patience. Post Blink.

 **Author's Note: Thank you so much to all who read and commented. :)**

* * *

 **Chapter One**

Martha awoke feeling warm and well-rested, and at once she knew something was wrong.

Every morning spent on the TARDIS invariably began in the same manner. At the (metaphorical) crack of dawn, the Doctor would explode into her bedroom, flicking on lights and shouting her full name at top volume. If by some miracle the gleeful, gale-force bellow of " _Rise and shine, Martha Jones!_ " failed to rouse her, other measures were employed. There would be ample sighing, complaining, pacing, and face-poking until she finally obliged him by waking up. That was when he'd drag her off to breakfast in the galley, and – with a calibre of enthusiasm wholly inappropriate for such an ungodly hour – bombard her with all his eager ideas for their day's adventure.

Ordinarily, she could fend him off long enough to squeeze in a shower and a new set of clothes. But before her hair had fully dried he'd be back in her personal space, loitering outside the bathroom door, grumbling about how much time she wasted getting ready and reminding her that the universe was waiting.

The nature of their lives meant a whirlwind of perpetual motion. There was no such thing as sleeping in on the TARDIS. So when she stirred into consciousness three hours later than usual, and was not greeted with the typical commotion – nor the sight of a tall, ominously Doctor-shaped shadow falling over her bed – it was a cause for immediate concern.

Martha abruptly sat upright in bed, frowning. Her bedroom was dark. Not only was it dark: it was empty and quiet and utterly undisturbed. Mild panic was quick to flare to life, and her gaze swivelled around the room. "Doctor?"

Nothing.

Something was _very_ wrong.

She kicked free of the tangles of her duvet and quickly got to her feet, hurrying out into the corridor in only her sleep shorts and thoroughly wrinkled t-shirt. The wall lights – set to mimic a basic 24-hour Earth day – had almost achieved full brightness, bathing the rounded coral hallway in warm yellow-orange. Figuratively speaking, it must have been around eleven. Thus even if the Doctor had neglected to wake her, she should've still been able to hear him up and about in other parts of the ship. Whether it was muttering to himself, or admonishing the TARDIS for its latest act of insubordination, or belting out a shameless, horrifically off-key rendition of _Bohemian Rhapsody_ under the console – he was physically incapable of lasting five minutes without making noise.

Yet all was silent.

Such stark silence was more than a little unnerving in the incessantly humming time machine. Martha felt the hairs on her arms raise. "Doctor?" she tried again.

When no vague, harried response of " _Not now, Martha, working_ " was shouted back to her, she started down the corridor towards the console room.

It was the most logical place to start looking. The console room was his favourite setting, after all, where he crammed his long limbs into the tiniest and most utterly ridiculous of nooks and crannies to work on his ship at night. She hoped he'd just fallen asleep there, as he was sometimes wont to do; if he hadn't, there were a frightening number of places he could have been. The TARDIS was infinite. And Martha was far from confident in her ability to navigate even the small portion of the spaceship he had given her a tour of, let alone uncharted territory. Just of the few places she'd seen, there was the library, the galley, the observatory, the squash courts, the wardrobe, the swimming pool…

The low and indistinct sound of someone coughing suddenly cut through the silence.

She jumped, startled, and turned to stare in puzzlement at the door closest to her left.

The nondescript metal door looked back at her, the epitome of innocence. Then, from behind it: the strained coughing echoed again.

Martha frowned and moved closer to listen. There was silence for five seconds, ten; then came more coughing. A throat was painstakingly cleared.

She knocked lightly, unwilling to open the door without express permission. "Hello?" she called, hoping she wouldn't startle him. "Doctor?"

In lieu of an answer, the horrible sound of gagging erupted from inside the room.

Her response was instinctive. Discretion forgotten, Martha reached forward and hit the panel beside the door without a second thought. It wasn't locked; and with a muted clicking and clanking of cogs, it smoothly receded into the wall.

The corals of the corridor abruptly dissolved into dim bedroom. The space was Spartan, dark mahogany wood and not much else. It was impersonal, save for a modest wardrobe and an overstuffed bookshelf. And there was a clear focus in the room: a large, unmade four poster bed.

A large unmade four poster bed which, in the centre of its twisted sheets, held one very pale and very miserable-looking Time Lord.

Suddenly, things made a lot more sense.

The Doctor was still in his jimjams, heaving rather violently into a small bin clutched to his chest. A familiar bitter scent tinged the air – and there were several telling noises echoing from the inside of the plastic, all of the unpleasant splattering and retching variety.

The door clicked and clanked itself shut behind Martha as she went in, her own stomach churning in empathy. There was a brief second of awkward uncertainty as she stood at the foot of his bed, unnoticed; but when the heaving intensified, she worked up the mettle to go to his side, circumnavigating a suspicion stain darkening the carpet (it didn't look like he'd reached the bin quite in time) and perching herself up on the edge of the high mattress beside him.

It was a little disorientating to be in such a private space of his. After a moment, though, sympathy overcame hesitation. She risked extending a hand to gingerly rub his back, feeling the feverish warmth of his skin bleed through the thin fabric. There was, of course, no acknowledgement of her presence – just more muffled gagging. And as many times as Martha had dreamt about being in his bed…well, this definitely wasn't what she'd envisioned.

He dragged his face out of the bin with a groan, struggling for breath, face scrunched in utter disgust. She could see his arms trembling as he tried to locate the floor to replace the bin. The fresh contents of the wastebasket sloshed alarmingly. Martha hurried to rescue it from his hands before there was a spill, and sat it on the carpet; inside the halo of balled-up, crumply tissue from where it had clearly been taken.

The mattress let out a protesting squeak as the Doctor fell backwards, flopping flat on his back and weakly pulling a pillow over his head. The pang of sympathy Martha felt grew even more acute. She would've hugged him if he hadn't reeked of sick – but, as he very much did, she settled for giving his bicep a consoling little pat.

Slowly, the pillow slid down to reveal bleary eyes, rimmed with red, squinted and peering out at her.

"Wha…Martha?"

"Hiya," she said lightly. "I thought you said you couldn't catch the Anderian flu, mister."

"Can't." This gruff denial was croaked through a mouthful of pillowcase, just before a groggy yawn overtook him. Evidently he'd only recently woken up. And evidently he was comfortable enough in her presence to have no qualms about stretching like a sleepy cat. One long leg ended up sprawled over her lap in the motion as he rolled onto his side and burrowed his face back into the pillow. "Go away," he mumbled.

The sniffly, grouchy command was barely audible. She pretended not to hear it at all. "If you can't get flu," she pushed his leg off her lap and onto the bed, "how do you explain all this, then?"

A sweep of her hand encompassed his physical condition and the bin and the stain on the floor. A lone brown eye materialised to follow the movement, then narrowed accordingly. "Explain what?"

"You just sicked up in your bin, Doctor. You're still in bed. You look terrible." The last observation was apparently an insult severe enough to motivate him to lift his whole face out of the pillow, even if it was just to scowl up at her. "This isn't exactly normal. Even for you."

"Well, it's _nothing_ to do with the Anderians," was the sharp retort. His leg stubbornly put itself back into her lap. "Don't be stupid. I've got a Time Lord immune system, I don't have… _flu_."

The last word was spat out as if it were something deeply odious. But without the buffer of the pillow, she could now hear that his voice had been transformed over the course of the night. It was raspy, and flat – and completely, adorably nasal.

It took considerable self-restraint to keep from laughing at him. "Are you sure about that?"

His foot gave a half-hearted kick, nudging her stomach. Whether the faint kick was a reflexive expression of frustration or a failed attempt to shut her up, she wasn't certain. "Of course I'm _sure_. Besides, Anderia was what, a month ago?"

"Three days ago," she clarified.

"Same difference," he muttered, and tried to settle into his pillow again, jabbing it with his elbow to fluff it back to its original state.

"Three days is a standard incubation period. Maybe your immune system wasn't quite as infallible as you thought."

She could only assume that the pillow had stopped acquiescing to his wishes, as a moment later it went sailing through the air in a surge of aggravation. "We already had this talk," he snapped. "Primitive virus, highly superior cellular composition, Time Lord immune system. I physically _cannot_ get flu. It's simple biology, Martha, I _thought_ you were a medical student."

She ignored this last barb – and she didn't think he'd appreciate it much if she pointed out that it looked like the 'primitive' virus had his Time Lord immune system licked. "I remember what you said," she replied, calm. "But the Anderians told you it was the most virulent strain of flu they'd seen in the last forty-thousand years. Strong enough even to take on your 'superior' immune system, they said."

"The Anderians are _thick_ ," he hurled venomously, and struggled to sit up. "I'm fine."

Which perhaps would have been a rather more convincing assertion, had he not followed it by ducking his face into the crook of his elbow and bellowing out a sneeze.

She watched, unimpressed, as he collapsed back on the bed again; the exertion of sneezing depleting his energy and making him abandon his bid to sit upright. He looked utterly pitiful as he curled up (as best as someone that lanky _could_ curl up, anyway) and buried half his face in the sheet. "I think you should have listened to the Anderians," she said.

"Well, you're probably thick too," he retorted with a sullen sniffle.

In another scenario she might have swatted him for the remark, but she could only give another tired sigh as she took in just how pitiful he looked: shivering faintly, pyjamas stained with sweat, the underside of his nose red and irritated, his cheeks flushed with fever. He was only in the early throes of the ten-day flu; but even now he looked awful. In his current state he'd definitely not handle any swatting too well.

"Maybe next time you'll be reasonable and get yourself vaccinated as well, instead of just me."

"I didn't _need_ a vaccination," he rumbled. "You did. Humans are susceptible to everything." He reached back and groped blindly for his pillow; then, with a frustrated sigh, seemed to remember he'd flung it. He had to settle for grabbing a stray blue cushion. "The pollen on Eldredi 9 would kill you in six seconds."

Martha rolled her eyes. "Be that as it may, right now I'm not the sick one. You are."

He glared at her with all the forbidding turbulence of the Oncoming Storm – though the effect was somewhat diminished by the fact that he was curled up in his bed in striped pyjamas, shivering and hugging a cushion. "I'll have you know that _Time Lords_ do not get sick."

In the interest of not causing further injury to his dignity, she refrained from reminding him of the foul-smelling sick currently marring the carpet, and marring the bin, and marring the bottom left portion of his shirt a bit as well. "All right, how about we just go to the infirmary and make sure?"

"I am not going to the infirmary."

"Why not? Because you know you have flu, and don't want it up on a screen so I can say 'I told you so'?"

He sneezed explosively once more – Martha flinched and recoiled – then wilted into the rumpled bedsheets, breath shallow. "No, because I don't need to, that's why. Didn't I tell you to go away?"

"First off, would it be possible for you to _cover_ your mouth when you do that?"

"No," he retorted crossly.

She wiped off her wet arm with a corner of his bedsheet, grimacing. "What makes you think you don't need to go to the infirmary?"

"I've better things to do."

"Like what?" she challenged.

And she'd caught him there. "Well…" He visibly strained to think of something, mind clearly churning a bit slower than normal. "I thought we might go to…Kur-ha. Never took you there, 'cause we got a bit side-tracked," _side-tracked_ , of course, being his new term to encompass three months of her labouring as his maid in 1913, a period she thought he was frankly all too keen to gloss over, "but we could still go ice-skating on the mineral lakes."

"Doctor, I'm sorry, but you don't look like you'd make it to the console room in one piece, let alone a mineral lake." The single-eye scowl re-emerged. "I don't think you're in any state to leave the TARDIS."

"I'll go wherever I like," he said, and aimed another very feeble glare at her. "I don't have flu."

She folded her arms. He was beginning to grate on her nerves. The Doctor was unfathomably difficult at the best of times (in good health), and she'd known him long enough to know that, when reason and common sense failed, there was only one way to handle him.

"Right," she said simply, shrugging. "Well, if there's nothing wrong with you, you certainly don't need me here." Martha scooted away from him and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. "Kur-ha sounds good. I'll see you in the console room?"

He scrambled to sit up, and finally managed it this time, dropping his cushion in his haste. Two overly warm, sweaty hands clutched her forearm. "Wait," he demanded – and looked completely mad as he did so, brown hair sticking wildly up on the left side of his head and flattened on the right. "Wait. Martha. Don't go."

"You're fine. You haven't got flu. Why shouldn't I?"

"Because…" He glanced down and sniffled. "Well, because it's possible that I may have…miscalculated."

"Miscalculated what, exactly?"

"Welllll…" He hesitated on the monosyllable, very studiously staring at a point on her shoulder. "There could be a small, teensy-weensy, really quite spectacularly infinitesimal possibility that I'm…affected."

"Affected by…?"

"Uh…" Again the brain was struggling to produce an answer.

"Not the Anderian flu, I hope?"

"No," he insisted. "Just…I, ah, I might be feeling a bit…under par."

"Oh? You certain it's not flu, then?"

"No, no, no." He shook his head, swiping at his leaking nose with a shirtsleeve. "Can't get flu. I'm a Time Lord. Keep up."

Her eyes rolled yet again. "But you're ill?"

"I think I am."

"You 'think'?"

"It's…possible."

At this point Martha was prepared to tell him off for being ridiculous and drag him feet-first to the infirmary; but then she saw the bourgeoning pout on his face as he slouched back down into the duvet and hugged his cushion again, and took pity on him. The pout had always had an annoying way of getting to her; and the pout in league with the shivering was an unstoppable force.

Mollified a bit, she reached forward and gently laid the back of her hand against his clammy forehead. An almost human heat, much hotter than his usual cool body temperature, warmed her skin. "Aw. You're burning up."

He grumbled a bit and made an unenthusiastic attempt to bat her hand away. "I'm freezing."

"Freezing?"

The Doctor flinched, apparently realising what he'd just allowed to slip. "Not _freezing_ ," he amended hastily – as if she couldn't see his shivering for herself. "Just…chilly. A bit. There must be something wrong with the TARDIS." A suspicious glance flicked up at her. "You haven't been mucking with the thermostat, have you?"

"I didn't even know the TARDIS had a thermostat, so no. You definitely aren't cold, I can tell you that. Just feels that way. Probably chills."

"I don't have chills," he declared. "And I do _not_ want you fussing over me."

That was laughable, of course. If he so much as stubbed his toe, she was promptly notified and solicited for maximum sympathy – yet, if he'd broken a finger or sustained any similar serious injury, he'd keep it from her for weeks. It was being ordered about that he hated ( _sit down, leave that alone, get off the bloody ladder, you're in no condition to be running for your life_ ) not fussing. "Oh, hush. You love it when people fuss over you."

And because he couldn't deny it without the denial sounding blatantly like a fib, he just pulled his new cushion up over his face again. "I'm cold," he complained into it, as if that settled the debate.

Sighing, Martha shuffled across his bed and fetched the bunched-up duvet from where it had obviously been kicked, shaking out the tangles. He was indeed sweating, but she knew he could withstand extreme changes in internal temperature, so she wasn't too concerned about his fever; and there was no sense in him being uncomfortable. She returned to his side, and pulled the straightened-out coverlet up over him, tucking it around his shoulders.

A definite soft noise of content emanated from the pillow, and he settled into the new warmth.

"How's that?" she asked.

"That's nice," he reported from the safety his cushion, in a small, congested voice. "Thank you."

Because his hair was now the only thing exposed, she reached down and ruffled it affectionately – something that would earn her a solid tongue-lashing if he weren't sick, but he now accepted wordlessly. "Do you want me to make you a cup of tea?"

"No."

This muffled reply was quick and resolute. She tilted her head. "You must really be feeling awful. I don't think you've ever turned down tea before."

"It's not that I don't want it. But…" The cushion shifted minutely, revealing that his face had gone ashen, and not insignificantly green. "Something went horribly wrong earlier."

She frowned, worried for a moment. "What went wrong?"

"The gravity," he answered gravely. "When I woke up…it turned on me."

Martha suppressed her snort of amusement, and schooled her features into polite concern. "The gravity turned on you?"

"Yes." The Doctor shivered and curled further into the duvet, as if warding off the grim memory. "It must have malfunctioned, but…everything started coming up."

"Oh, no. Is that what happened?" she asked, pointing to the waste bin and stained carpet, trying very hard to maintain a straight face.

"Yes," he replied miserably.

She gave his shoulder a squeeze. "I'll take care of that for you, all right?"

"Sorry."

"Oh, it's not your fault," she said (even though it was entirely his fault for refusing a vaccination in the first place). She moved off the bed, careful not to disturb his sheets, and put her hands on her hips as she regarded the stain on the floor. "Have you got any cleaning fluid?"

"In the loo," he sniffled. His eyes trailed over to a door on the other side of the room. "Under the sink, maybe. Haven't used it in two-hundred years."

With this direction, Martha went to the door – which was, like everything else in the room, sturdy mahogany wood – and pulled it open. His bathroom was almost an exact replica of hers, clean lines and white tile, and therefore easy to navigate. She checked under the sink, and extracted the blue-labelled white jug she found.

A quick sniff under the unscrewed cap had her wrinkling up her nose and jerking away. It smelled rather like it hadn't been used in two-hundred years. Hopefully that potency was a good thing. She armed herself with a roll of dusty paper towels, then returned to the room.

The Doctor's gaze followed her. "Martha?"

"Yes?" she asked as she knelt down on the floor, assessing the best way to go about scrubbing the carpet. She had cleaned up far too many stains like this in the A&E, but that had always been on tiled floors.

"You're still in your pyjamas."

"So are you, Doctor."

"Oh." A pause. "I am."

"Your powers of observation never cease to amaze me," she muttered as she tipped out a small amount of cleaning fluid onto the floor, and – praying it wasn't going to burn through the carpet, or more importantly, her palm – began to wipe up the stain with one hand, pinching her nose with the other.

Luckily, the cleaning fluid was quite effective, and in only a moment the carpet was damp but stain-free. She lobbed the paper towels into the bin with the other vile contents. Then, between thumb and forefinger, she picked up the small army of sticky, used tissues that had amassed around it. Once the floor was clean, Martha returned the jug to its rightful location and treated her hands to a thorough washing before returning to her spot beside the shivering lump of duvet.

"I've cleaned it," she said, settling on the edge of the bed.

He smothered a rattling cough into his cushion. "T-Thanks."

The word was stuttered, mostly because his shivers had become so pronounced that his teeth clacked every other moment. Despite the fact that he was still sweating, he somehow did a very convincing job of appearing like he was stranded in the middle of the tundra. "Do you need another blanket?"

"No. You just went away," he mumbled – and he didn't sound too pleased about it, either. "But I'm fine now."

It took her a moment to connect the dots, but soon she realised what he was saying. Now she knew why he had clung to her arm the first time she'd threatened to leave: he'd been covertly using her body heat as a radiator.

Martha narrowed her eyes, looking down at him. He was very indiscreetly inching nearer to her. She shook her head at the irony. He wanted to be close to her – and _that_ certainly made a change from the status quo. The bitterer part of her had half a mind to get up and leave him to shiver; but she decided that this was not the time to be resentful over unrequited feelings.

Since she'd left, he had made a frail attempt to prop himself up halfway in his bed, and she scooted close. Her elbow bumped against his bicep, hip brushing hip.

He stopped inching, and gave what was definitely hum of approval as he released his cushion.

She briefly wished he was a bit less endearing, so she could be fully annoyed with him. At least he seemed to be shivering less dramatically now that she was so close (now that he could leech her heat properly, a cynical little voice muttered in the back of her mind).

"Okay," she prompted. "So, we've established that tea's out."

His eyes fluttered up to focus up on her. "Until the gravity stabilises."

"How about some water?" she suggested. "That seems safe enough."

"No."

"Why not water?"

"Wouldn't want to…tempt it."

Martha raised an eyebrow. "I'm not exactly sure how you can tempt gravity, but you're going to have to drink something soon. You need to replenish your fluids."

He frowned up at her. "Don't fuss. I know. I will. Not now."

"What do you plan to do now?"

There was a pause.

"I'm a bit tired," he confessed, voice sheepish, picking at a loose thread on his blanket.

"Well," she gave his arm a pat, "you get your rest, then. I'll go and entertain myself in the library, all right? You can shout if you need me."

But before she could even begin to get up, his hands were clutching at her arm once more.

"Martha, I thought you said you wouldn't go."

She frowned. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You _said_ ," he repeated slowly, giving her a look that suggested he thought she was being dense, "that you wouldn't go."

"Are you actually saying that you want me to sit here and," she shook her head in bewilderment, " _watch_ you sleep?"

The Doctor didn't seem very troubled by this notion. "You don't have to watch," he offered. "You can sleep, too. Humans love sleep."

"I'm not tired, and –"

"You look tired."

Anderian flu or no Anderian flu, that earned him a solid swat on his arm.

"Ow," he bleated.

"– and there's no _bloody_ way I'm going to sleep with you."

Heat rushed to her cheeks as she processed the sentence, but he didn't seem to notice her sudden flush or the double entendre. "What's wrong with me?" he squawked instead.

She shifted away from him, putting a nice safe two inches between them as she tried to force away her flush. "You're infected."

"You're vaccinated!" he protested, following her and eradicating her two inches of distance.

She scooted once more. This time it was three inches, and a warning glare. "Vaccinations aren't fool-proof, Doctor. Just because you've got the bubonic plague vaccine doesn't mean you go and cuddle flea-ridden rats."

"I don't have the bubonic plague," he complained. "And I'm not a rat."

"And I'm _not_ going to be cuddling you."

"I didn't say we should cuddle." But then he seemed to consider it. "But if you're…"

"No, I'm not offering," she cut him off, narrowing her eyes, "and don't you _dare_ ask."

"But I don't have fleas!"

"You love reminding me how weak and feeble my immune system is, don't you? I'm not going to lie here and inhale your germs!"

"Martha…"

"No," she said firmly, and emphasised her point with another inch of space. "No way."

"I'm cold." He reached out again and grabbed her wrist this time. "Don't leave."

"If you're that cold, I can go and get you a electric blanket. There is no reason why I have to stay."

Forget looking like someone had kicked his puppy – he looked as if he _were_ the puppy, and she'd just booted him clear across the room. "Martha."

"No."

"Please?"

"No," she repeated – although it had to be said that she was slightly less firm this go round. "You smell like sick."

And of course, now the pout commenced in full force.

"Please?"

She could count the number of times she'd heard him say 'please' to her on one hand, which made the deployment of the plaintive little word – twice, no less – devastatingly effective. She tried to glower at him for another moment.

He pouted.

Martha groaned in frustration.

"Fine," she ground out from clenched teeth. "I'll stay." His eyes started to light up, and she held up a finger, stopping him short. "But I am going to stay _here_ ," she jabbed her finger at the mattress, "and you are going to stay _there_."

The Doctor's gaze fell to the space between them – and his brows instantly furrowed, as if it were an entire canyon instead of ten centimetres. "But…" His nose scrunched in confusion. "How are we going to cuddle?"

She blushed furiously. "We're _not_ cuddling. What's gotten into you?"

"A deep and relentless chill," he whinged.

"Stop being dramatic. I am going to stay here, and you are going to stay there."

"But Martha," arrived the inevitable protest.

"That's it," she interrupted. "Either you agree to that, or I'm headed to the library."

He attempted to pout her into submission for another few seconds – but once he saw that she was not going to be moved on her compromise, he sighed and resignedly pulled the duvet up higher, covering his nose and mouth. "Fine."

"You're going to stay over there?" she checked.

"Yes," he grumbled.

"All right, then."

Silence settled between them as she fell back and folded her arms tightly, staring up at his ceiling. She was still in just her shirt and sleep shorts – shorts which, now that she thought about it, exposed a lot more of her legs than she was actually comfortable with him seeing, especially in his bed. However, he'd kick up another fuss if she tried to go back to her bedroom for a pair of trousers, so she settled for pulling up a bit of the duvet he wasn't using and covering herself from the waist down.

"Are you cold?" he asked, sniffling.

"No," she said, feeling her cheeks warm up. "I'm fine."

A pause. "Here you go." He offered up the excess duvet that he was hoarding on his side. "I don't want you to be cold, too."

And if he'd stop being so infuriatingly sweet, then she could be properly irritated with him for guilting her into staying. "Thank you," she sighed. "But you need it more than I do."

"Okay," he accepted simply, pulling the bedsheets back to his side and huddling into them.

Martha smiled reluctantly, and before she could trouble herself with all of the repercussions her actions might have, she reached out and ran her hand through his hair. By the time she saw him on most days it had been washed and had some sort of product in and was more or less an award-winning masterpiece. Right now, it was dishevelled and haphazard and delightfully fluffy from sleep. It was a good job the Daleks couldn't see him like this – bed head made the Doctor seem infinitely less intimidating.

Her smile twitched as leant into her touch. The treatment was tolerated for nearly a minute before he finally commented.

"Martha?" His voice was drowsy and faraway. "Are you petting me?"

"Yes. Go to sleep."

"Okay," he mumbled again.

It was less than two minutes later that his snuffling breathing evened out, and she finally withdrew her hand from his hair, watching his slack features. He looked younger when he was asleep. Not that she didn't already know that, all the times she'd (literally) stumbled upon him catnapping in their flat in 1969 – but it never ceased to amaze her, how sleep took the weight of nine-hundred years out of his features.

Sighing softly, she turned onto her side, facing away from him. She'd planned to sneak out right after he fell asleep, but…well, his bed really was quite comfortable. It was impossible to be sure whether it was the soft mattress or the pillows or even rhythmic rumble of his breathing lulling her, but something was doing the job and doing it well.

As her eyelids began to feel a bit heavy, she told herself she'd only rest for thirty minutes.

It was some four hours later that Martha came to with a violent start.


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

She inhaled sharply, trying to remember where she was and how she'd gotten there.

Then it came back to her and she slapped a hand over her eyes.

The distinct feverish warmth of a particular Time Lord was seeping through her pyjamas as he huddled against her. Despite her firm warnings, the Doctor had obviously gravitated towards her like a heat-seeking missile in his sleep – and now he was snuggled up to her back, one of his arms draped around her, snoring like a train engine in her ear.

So much for the no cuddling mandate.

Martha felt as if she should be very put out by this whole situation; but really, she'd be lying if she said it weren't at least a little bit pleasant. If she ignored the sound of his heavy stuffy breathing and the fact that he was burning up with fever – then this was just him holding her in his bed. And as the only holding the Doctor usually did was at arm's length, it wasn't as if she'd dare complain.

Even with the rumble of his congested snoring, she was oddly at peace. Martha found herself hoping that he'd stay asleep just a little longer so she could memorise the weight of his arm when it was slung over her hip, the solid feel of his chest rising and falling against her back, the tickle of his heavy breaths in her hair. She wanted to remember all of this in ten days' time when he was fully recovered (or, more likely, in five days' time when he was vehemently insisting that he was fully recovered).

But of course, much like the man who kept it safe, the universe was indifferent to her romanticism. And so before she had time to commit any of these delightful things to memory, there was a gasp into awareness behind her.

"Martha?" the Doctor croaked out in a rush, voice breathless with panic. He instantly let go of her – no surprise there – and sat up hastily, with a sharp creak of mattress.

"Yeah?" Sighing, she twisted around to peer at him – and frowned. "What's wrong?"

The fevered flush in his face was rapidly draining away to an unhealthy paleness, and when he looked at her, his eyes were widened in alarm.

"I think it's the gravity again."

* * *

It was after an attempted sprint to the toilet, an ill-timed stumble, and one more usage of the whiffing alien cleaning fluid that the Doctor finally clambered back into his bed, moaning dolefully.

"Is vomiting a normal side effect of the Anderian flu?" Martha wondered in a mutter, as she binned the last of the soiled paper towels in the loo. "With normal flu – I mean, the Earth one – usually only children get sick like that."

"For the _last_ time, I haven't got the Anderian flu," she heard his voice retort shakily from the bedroom. If she pressed the issue, he'd undoubtedly get worked up again and start in on his 'I have super-duper Time Lord immunity to every single pathogen in the known universe and don't you forget it' harangue: and so that was the end of that particular conversation. Heaving a very heavy sigh, she turned off the light in the bathroom and reluctantly returned to her post beside him.

He was squirming around as if struggling to get into a comfortable position. Martha observed wearily for a moment. The squirming only got worse, and he started tugging at the collar of his striped pyjamas.

She felt a headache coming on. "What is it now?"

"Hot," he complained. "Why's it so hot? Did you muck about with the thermostat?"

"That's just the fever, Doctor." She sat down next to him.

There was grumbling as he pointedly twisted away from her human warmth, irritably glancing over his shoulder; as if his fever was somehow her fault.

She exhaled with practised patience. "Do you want that cup of water?"

He frowned, and hesitated. Apparently the vomiting had deeply unnerved him. "The gravity has already turned on you twice," she reasoned. "It seems stable now. I think it'll be a while yet before it strikes again. So – water?"

"Fine," he huffed, tugging his collar again. His perspiration had progressed even further, and she reckoned his acquiescence had less to do with her reasoning and more to do with the fact that he was burning up. Instead of just the two patches under his arms he'd been sporting earlier, now there were now damp, dark parabolic sweat stains down his chest and his back. His fringe was sticking to his forehead and his dusting of freckles were all but erased by the fevered flush.

"Maybe you should take a cool shower," she suggested as she stood up. "That would make you feel better."

"Fine."

"I'll come back in twenty minutes, okay?"

"Fine," he sighed gloomily.

* * *

Compared to the rest of the ship, the TARDIS's galley was uninspiring. It was just a simple kitchen – if one overlooked the atomic dishwasher and the exotic fruit dispenser and the bigger-on-the-inside cupboards, of course – and Martha took solace in the brief respite it provided from whinging, vomiting Time Lords.

Because she had forgone breakfast in favour of finding the Doctor earlier, her stomach – evidently taking its cues from the Time Lord – was grumbling its protests. The first thing she did with her allotted twenty minutes was have her normal tea and toast to appease it. Although it did feel a bit odd to be eating it without the Doctor gabbling about alien planets at her shoulder and urging her to chew faster.

She finished her meal, deposited her dishes in the washer, and then set about filling his usual tea mug with water. Though he had not asked for it, she also made the Doctor a piece of toast – and, to ensure that he actually ate it instead of shoving it aside, she slathered the toast in his favourite marmalade. It wouldn't be the best meal he'd ever eaten, but it'd keep his energy up.

Martha was hunting for a tray to put the food on when something appeared just out the corner of her eye.

Startled, she looked up from the cupboard she'd been rummaging in. On the countertop right in front of her sat a bottle of white tablets with a blue, child-proofed lid.

She straightened up and got to her feet, closely inspecting the bottle. The label was in swirling circles of Gallifreyan; she had no way of telling what it was. "Is this for him?" she wondered aloud, looking up to the ceiling.

There was no reply, no indication that the sentient ship had even put the bottle there. She frowned. "Is it…what, an antiemetic? Something for his fever? A cure for the Anderian flu?"

Nothing.

"Well, thanks for the help," Martha muttered, feeling a bit silly as she looked back down to the bottle. If it was indeed for him, the Doctor would never agree to read the label for her; and if she didn't know what it was, there was no way she was going to try to give it to him.

Sighing, she set down the bottle and returned to her search for a tray. It took a minute or two, but she finally located one; a basic grey plastic platter, large enough for her purposes. She set it down on the floor beside her, closed the cupboard, then looked back to the tray.

The bottle of tablets sat innocently in the middle, staring up at her.

"Okay, so you want me to have this, then?" She grabbed the bottle and the tray and put both on the countertop. "Is it something for the Doctor?" The question was met with silence. "Okay. So it's _not_ for the Doctor."

The light in the kitchen blinked on and off.

"Not for the Doctor, then," she surmised. "So…" She scrunched her nose and thought for a moment. "Is it for me?"

Once again, the light blinked.

"But I'm not sick," she pointed out. "Unless…is this to keep me from getting sick?" No reply. "Wait – _am_ I sick? Did he give me the flu?"

A low, droning hum emanated from the TARDIS – a sound she'd heard a million times in various parts of the ship and thought nothing of. Now, however, it seemed oddly apologetic.

"I should've known," she sighed. The faucet over the sink switched itself on and off in agreement. Martha looked down at the bottle of pills; then a thought struck her. "Hang on. This is from Gallifrey, isn't it?"

The sink gurgled in confirmation.

"Well, I can't take _this_ ," she protested. "It's just a flu. What if this is the only bottle he has left? It's not like he can go back and stock up."

Another hum of the TARDIS – one which, though she swore it was the same as the other, sounded distinctly irritated.

"I can't," Martha insisted. "Especially not without telling him first. It's theft. No, forget that, it's _worse_ than theft."

An electric current very suddenly jumped up from the bottle in her hand and bit at her palm. She gasped at the sting, dropping it. "Hey!"

The bottle landed right-side up in a way that didn't half defy physics, resting at her feet.

"I'm not taking it," she growled. "And that _hurt_."

Suddenly the bottle was gone. The TARDIS must have finally relented, she thought. Tutting in disapproval as she rubbed the tingling out of her hand, she put the Doctor's toast and water on the tray before leaving the galley and retracing her steps through the corridors, back to the his bedroom – which, disturbingly enough, was only a few doors down from her own.

Because of her unexpected encounter with the TARDIS, she had been gone for nearly thirty minutes instead of twenty, but she still knocked on the door in case he wasn't decent, balancing the tray against her hip. "Doctor?" she called. "Can I come in?"

"Yes," he replied from inside, still sounding very unhappy. She figured the shower hadn't gone over as well as she'd hoped it would.

She pressed the door panel. When it glided open, she was surprised to find that the lights in his bedroom had glowed to life in the time she'd been gone. Moving into the room, she set the tray down at the foot of his bed. For a moment she almost mused that this was oddly similar to bringing John Smith his breakfast, her morning routine in 1913.

Then she looked up.

"Doctor!" she yelped.

"Hmm?"

Martha's mouth opened and closed soundlessly for a few moments as she gaped. And then she finally managed to cobble together some semblance of a coherent thought, and squeaked, "Where are your clothes?"

He pointed to a spot on the floor. "Down there," he sniffed.

She forced her wide eyes away from him to stare at his striped pyjamas, and what looked like one of his red undershirts and his blue pinstriped trousers – all heaped on the carpet. It was as if he had tried to get dressed but abandoned the effort halfway through.

She floundered for a second as her brain struggled to piece the images together. "Why?"

"I'm hot," he complained, as if that was all the explanation required.

Until fifteen odd seconds ago, the most skin she'd ever seen on the Doctor was on the rare occasions he deigned to take off his jacket and roll up his shirtsleeves. He was always buttoned up, tucked in, thoroughly hidden behind careful barriers of wool and cotton; so much so to the point that she sometimes forgot there even _was_ skin underneath all those tight suits.

And so naturally, the sight of him sprawled on his bed, stripped down to nothing but his pants, was somewhat of a shock to the system.

For a wonderful, horrible moment she'd thought he was starkers – but then she caught sight of his shorts and, gradually remembering how to breathe, she tore her eyes away from his body. He only had flu; he wasn't blind. And she couldn't very well eye him up while he was looking right at her.

With herculean self-restraint, Martha dragged her attention off of the six feet of pale Time Lord before her and instead focussed on the tray, reaching for the water. "Well," she cleared her throat uncomfortably, banishing the residual squeakiness from her voice and making an effort not to stammer, "I've got something for you to drink."

The Doctor managed to wriggle himself into a partially upright position, accepting the proffered mug. "Thanks." He took a tentative sip of the water, and gave a telling wince as soon as it hit his sore throat.

She perched on the edge of the bed, feeling rather unsure of herself. It was very easy to fuss over him when he was in sweaty pyjamas and reeked of sick. Bare skin and that warm, clean, freshly-showered aroma made things rather more…challenging.

"So," she said, angling for a normal tone and failing, the segue abrupt and painfully awkward. He didn't seem to notice, too busy cringing into his mug. "Did the shower help any?"

He coughed on the final swallow, then handed the half-empty mug back to her and slouched into his pillows, duvet strewn over his knees as if he couldn't be bothered to kick it off all the way. "A bit," he muttered. "Not enough. Still hot."

Flustered, she sat the mug back on the tray, hoping that he couldn't see her blushing. "Well, at least you don't smell like sick anymore."

He scowled, and opened his mouth, predictably to tell her that Time Lords couldn't smell like sick – but then something else caught his attention. "What's that?"

His eyes were on the tray, and she turned around, prepared to hand him the toast and bribe him into eating it. Then she saw the bottle of tablets.

"It followed me," she stated incredulously.

"What?"

"The TARDIS," Martha sighed. "I think – well, I think she wanted me to take these."

"Why? What are they?"

She reached out and handed him the bottle. He took it in his left hand, using his right to prop himself up a bit more as he examined it. Then he frowned deeply, and slowly looked up at her. "You're…ill?"

"That's what your ship seems to think," she replied, shrugging.

He was suddenly very pale, and Martha worried he was going to vomit again. But he didn't lean over the edge of his bed and sick up. Instead he asked, in an unusually timid voice: "Is it my fault?"

She rolled her eyes at the question, snorting a laugh. "I spent four hours breathing in all your gross flu germs, Doctor, of _course_ it's your fault. I'm not surprised. I _told_ you it was a bad idea."

He didn't seem to think it was comical in the slightest, and his eyes were wide with guilt. "I'm sorry."

Martha waved off the apology. "It's fine. What is that stuff, anyway?"

"It's an antiviral." She was pinned by the concerned frown for another few seconds before his eyes finally dropped to the bottle. "Why didn't you take them?"

She shook her head. "I couldn't."

"Why not?"

She gestured a bit awkwardly. "I mean…they're from your home," she said, cautious, not wanting to upset him with a mention of Gallifrey. "The label, it's in your language. I wasn't going to take them without asking, and since you can't, uh…well, if there weren't any more _left_ ," she hedged, flinching at herself and realising she was bulldozing her way through what was supposed to be a sensitive explanation, "I didn't want to waste them. I've had the flu a million times. I don't need an antiviral. Definitely not _that_ antiviral, anyway."

The Doctor stared at her for a long moment.

After a few seconds Martha shrunk a little under the sudden intense scrutiny, fighting the urge to look away in embarrassment. She wondered if he was about to admonish her for the disgusting sentimentality, toss the bottle at her and return to his sick grumpy self – but he didn't. He just looked down to the bottle, and seemed to swallow with tremendous difficulty.

She blinked, bemused. If she didn't know better, she would have thought he was on the verge of tears.

Almost moving in slow motion, he unscrewed the cap on the medicine and shook out two of the tablets into his palm. When he extended his hand to her, Martha was hesitant. "Are you sure?" she asked, looking down at the innocuous white tablets. "I can take them?"

He could only nod, shaking his hand at her insistently.

Feeling that something very significant had just passed between them and she had completely missed it, Martha plucked the tablets out of his palm and stuck them in her mouth. They were a bit too large to swallow whole, so she bit down on a hunch, and it easily crumbled against her tongue. Chewing – and feeling very uneasy as he closely watched her swallow them – she smiled at him. "Thank you."

"Martha," he said, and even with his congestion, his voice was suspiciously thick. "Come here."

Immediately she was apprehensive. "Why?"

"Just, come here."

And the brown eyes were imploring her, so she tentatively scooted closer to him – only to be tugged into what had to be the fiercest hug he'd ever given her.

It was the flu, Martha thought. He'd finally gone round the bend.

"You know," she said, trying for levity, voice muffled against his decidedly exposed skin, "this is how I got ill in the first place."

But apparently he still didn't think the situation amusing, as he only held her tighter. She normally would have given his back an awkward pat, but his back was just as alarmingly naked as the rest of him, so she refrained. It was bad enough that her nose was trapped against the junction between freckled shoulder and neck, and with every inhale all she could smell was soap and body heat.

And this was – well. 'Nice' probably wasn't the right word.

"Doctor," she said gently. "You really don't need to beat yourself up. I mean, I'm a medical student. I knew I was most likely going to get flu, hanging around you. Remember? About cuddling rats?"

"Yeah," he sniffed. "Am I a rat?"

She was fully prepared to confirm this, but he seemed genuinely concerned by what her answer might be, so she drew back from the hug and pretended to inspect him. And perhaps _pretended_ was a bit of an exaggeration. Her eyes flicked from the wild damp hair to the bared (slightly furry) chest to the unsettlingly snug pants. Martha had always assumed he was just sort of scrawny underneath his pinstriped ensemble – but a split second of observation made it clear that this was not at all the case.

"No," she said decisively, and cleared her throat. "You are _definitely_ not a rat."

Usually a coy compliment like that would inflate his ego to astronomical proportions, but as most of his recent history had been spent vomiting and sleeping, she supposed it was just the boost he needed. A ghost of a smile crossed his lips as he slowly leant back into her (evidently proximity was a thing they were doing, now). "Does that mean we can cuddle?"

"Don't you push your luck, mister."

"Okay."

And because she simply could not resist, and because his drying hair was right there within touching distance, she risked running a hand through it to smooth down the more errant strands so he wouldn't look as much like wet porcupine. She was only planning on doing it once, honestly – but then he hummed low in his throat, and it seemed criminal to stop after that.

It occurred to Martha only a very short time later that his head was resting on her shoulder and that his breathing was exceptionally heavy. "Doctor?" she asked, taking her hand from his hair to frown down at him. "Are you falling asleep?"

"Hmm?" came his decidedly sleepy reply. "Huh? No."

"Good," she said. "Because you still haven't eaten your toast."

"Toast?" he echoed, and the distaste in his voice was palpable. "I don't want toast."

"Not even if it has your favourite orange marmalade on it?"

"Hmm." There was a moment of consideration. "No."

"Wow. You're going to go to sleep, then?"

"Hmm."

Martha figured his shower must have tired him. She'd already gotten him to drink something – she supposed eating could be held off until the next time he woke up. "All right," she said. "Well, you can't fall asleep here. I'm not going to be holding you up."

Nothing.

"Doctor, you need to move." He was silent. "Doctor?"

A soft snore was her only reply.


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

The mahogany bedroom was empty.

This was Martha's first and most alarmed thought upon coming into the Doctor's room the next day.

The preceding several hours had been spent reading whilst he slept and thwarting all his sleepy attempts to cuddle with her. Most of the evening had been quite serene – largely because he'd been too lethargic to get out of bed. Long hours had been filled with congested snoring and the occasional inexplicable, sleepy murmur that Brian's shoes fit perfectly (who Brian was, or why the Doctor had been wearing his shoes, she was still rather unclear on).

Then, upon being taken over by a yawn, she had retired to her own room for some rest. Which, following a shower and some more breakfast, put her where she was now: standing in an empty room that ought to be inhabited.

She had known that there would come a point when he would begin to reject the idea that he was ill. Or the idea that he had ever had the Anderian flu, or that they had visited Anderia in the first place, or that a planet called Anderia even existed. She'd known that he would claim to be healthy and try to infiltrate the console room to fly the TARDIS.

But she had not known that he was going to quite literally abandon ship on just the second day of his illness. Given how exhausted he'd seemed, Martha had thought he'd endure at least three or four days of enforced bedrest before he tried to leave.

Yet not even forty-eight whole hours had passed before he'd tried to abscond without her knowledge. She had underestimated both him and his capacity for bad decisions. For a moment she entertained the idea that maybe he'd merely gotten better much more quickly than expected – but she knew that was wishful thinking.

A quick inspection of his room revealed that his clothes were missing from the floor, so he hadn't innocently gone wandering around in his pants in search of her. He was fully dressed. The grey platter that once held toast was now bare, only a few incriminating crumbs left as evidence of its demise. She checked under his bed for the shoes she'd absently noticed yesterday while cleaning up sick, and sighed when she saw that one of his pairs of trainers – the red ones – were absent. That solidified her hunch.

He was planning a trip.

* * *

When Martha entered into the console room, her pyjamas swapped for jeans and a blue vest top, she looked for all the world like she was fully prepared for a day of exhilarating thrills, running, and intergalactic troubleshooting.

Reality was a touch less exciting, as all her day would actually consist of was wringing the neck of a particular daft alien.

A daft alien who, once she'd laid eyes on him, didn't even look like he should even be vertical, let alone manning the helm of a time machine.

The Doctor was standing at the console, chest heaving as he struggled to recover from what had been – based on what she'd heard in the corridor – an incredibly violent fit of sneezing. His suit looked even more rumpled than it traditionally did, red tie hanging limply from his neck. The wonderful, artfully messy hair was flat and listless. Sweat shone on his upper lip. Worse, his eyes were even redder now: the bags under them pronounced and puffy as he poked at the keyboard on the console, staring blankly at the monitor and sniffling every few moments.

"What are you doing?"

She knew he was well and truly out of it when it took him several moments to register her presence. His gaze jumped up and he had to blink twice before recognition sparked. Then his expression went vaguely guilty, and he quickly straightened his posture, attempting to make himself to look less dependent on the console, with marginal success.

"I'm looking at the monitor," he replied in a sniff, adopting a defensive tone at once. "I'm fine."

Shouting at him was generally never the way to achieve things, so she calmly crossed to the other side of the console and stood next to him. "What's on the monitor?"

He pointed at a blinking light. "That."

"What's that?"

"That's where I'm going."

"Right," she said, squinting at the tiny circle and nodding. "So, what did they do to you?"

A confused pause.

"They've not done anything."

"Well, you clearly think it's a good idea to spread your germs there. And maybe even introduce the Anderian flu to a foreign environment. So they must have done something."

This was all it took to get him going.

"I do _not_ have the Anderian flu," he said forcefully, in a way that would have been quite intimidating had his voice not been so thickly, hilariously congested.

"We've been through this already, Doctor," she sighed. "If you're not sick, then why do I somehow vividly remember you vomiting all over your carpet yesterday?"

Had he not already been flushed from fever, she got the distinct impression that she would have seen him blush faintly. "I told you about the gravity," he mumbled, tugging at his ear.

This go-round, Martha had no patience for his ridiculousness. "Oh, so has the gravity given you lethargy as well? And a fever? And chills? And, apparently, the right to go spreading the Anderian flu about the cosmos?"

"I will not spread flu. I am not contagious. And in the last few hours, I have slept for longer than I have in years. Any illness that I may…" she cleared her throat pointedly, making him narrow his eyes, "…or may _not_ have picked up is long gone from my system."

"Is that so?"

"Yes! I mean," he flapped a hand at himself, "look at me. Do I look ill to you?"

She looked at him. He was still gripping the console, trying and failing to mask his shivers, his face pale and drawn, dark spots of sweat beginning to peek through his jacket in unfortunate half-moons.

"You are a vision of health," she said.

He scowled, for once taking note of the dripping sarcasm. "Listen, Martha. I don't want to argue with you, and I appreciate what you've done, but I am not going to stay cooped up in here in the TARDIS for _ten days._ Anything could be happening out there. Entire planets are being annihilated as we speak."

She rolled her eyes at the predictable histrionics. She'd known he was going to try to use some variation of the classic 'the universe is in peril' line to convince her – and she wasn't fooled. Martha put her hands on her hips. "You told me that there was no real time in the Vortex, Doctor. It's like being in stasis, you said. Didn't you?"

"I s'pose," he sighed. "I mean, that's ridiculous simplification and it's not actually anything like that, at all, but if it helps you visualise…sure."

"So if we're in stasis," she reasoned, "then nothing is happening that you're missing. No one is being annihilated. And you can be cooped up for as long as need be."

The Doctor opened his mouth to disagree with her, to highlight all of the blindingly obvious, disappointing ways her logic was flawed, and probably to lecture her on how disrespectful it was to try to explain the dynamics of the Time Vortex to a Time Lord.

But then he seemed to realise that she was actually right.

He faltered for a moment, before his expression gave way to a glare. "Stop…stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"There may not be any alien invasions or universe-altering catastrophes to neutralise at the moment," he said firmly, "but there is absolutely _no_ reason I have to stay in the TARDIS."

She raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly at how he was barely holding himself up on the console. "Isn't there?"

The glare reached an Oncoming Storm calibre, and was decidedly more effective than his last attempt; but even so, it was still rather difficult to be intimidated when he was shivering. "No," he growled.

"Doctor," she began, trying to be reasonable, realising that arguing with him had not been the best approach to take. "Forget spreading the flu, forget being sick. I'm worried about _you._ What happens if we're running for our lives – because we always do – and you, I dunno, faint or something?"

But this was evidently the wrong thing to say, as he finally let go of the console, indignantly turning to face her, looking tremendously affronted. "I am not going to _faint_. Have I ever fainted before?" he demanded.

"Yes, that time the king of Gamca 6 tried to make you eat a spider during your knighting ceremony. Went out like a light."

"That was different!"

"You shouldn't leave the TARDIS," she said. "You _know_ you shouldn't leave the TARDIS. I don't have to tell you this."

"No, you don't." His jaw was set. "Because no matter how many times you say it, I am not going to change my mind. I have lived through plagues, Martha. A primitive virus is not going to keep me inside of my own time machine."

Martha knew then that she was not going to persuade him. Now it was no longer just leaving the TARDIS – now it was a point of pride for him to prove to her that he could leave the TARDIS without any complications while he was sick. She resigned herself to the fact that it was time to take the path of least resistance. Wherever they went, he'd tire himself out in a few short hours. Then, when disaster inevitably struck, and he was back in bed, feeling terrible, shucking off his clothes and hiding in the duvet: that was when she'd give him the telling-off he deserved.

"All right." She shrugged and folded her arms. "Fair enough."

Clearly, he had been expecting her to continue arguing. Already having his retort lined up, he opened his mouth to deliver it. Then he blinked, puzzled, realising what she'd said. "Fair enough?" he repeated. "What do you mean, fair enough?"

"I mean, fair enough." She gestured to the console. "Go on."

He glanced at her sideways, looking very much like a suspicious, sweaty hedgehog. Then he put one tentative hand on the controls. "I am leaving the TARDIS," he stated slowly.

"I know. You've said. Where are we going?"

His eyebrows furrowed. "We? _We_? You're coming with me?"

"I can't very well let you go by yourself," she pointed out sensibly. "You'll get into all sorts of trouble, and then won't be able to get yourself out."

"You're not going to try to stop me?"

Martha gave him a look. "How do you suppose I'd do that, then, Doctor? Rugby tackle you?"

He seemed considerably alarmed by the suggestion, and reached out quickly, grabbing the edge of the console as if to brace himself.

She sighed deeply. "I'm kidding. You're not going to listen to me, so there's no point in me wasting time trying to stop you. I'll come with you, so long as you promise me that you're not still contagious."

"I'm not contagious." There was sincerity in his eyes. "Haven't been for twelve hours. Honest."

"Okay then," she accepted.

"I'm a Time Lord," he added helpfully. "Superior cells."

"Yes, I think you may have _possibly_ mentioned that once or twice." She shook her head in exasperation, then pointed her finger at the little circle of Gallifreyan on the monitor. "Where are we going?"

He still seemed a bit cautious – glancing at her warily every few seconds as if to make sure she was not going to magically produce a pair of handcuffs and chain him to the floor – but he eventually divulged that there was an event called the Starlight Festival taking place. Apparently, like Kur-ha, he had been meaning to show her this as well. He explained that the festival was held once every century, on the thirty-sixth moon of a planet called Khaldor; and that he was positive she would love it.

"Why's it called the Starlight Festival?" she wanted to know.

"It's positioned almost perfectly in the middle of the universe. Welllll, I say almost perfectly. Bit to the left, actually, but the effect is the same. Once every hundred of your Earth years it completes a revolution around Khaldor," he swirled his finger to demonstrate this, "and right above the planet, you can see an entire sky full of stars from its surface. Gives the best visibility in the galaxy for twenty whole minutes, so long as the clouds cooperate. Celestial phenomenon. The whole point of the festival. Mere coincidence, but I've heard it's quite a sight to see."

This endurance ramble gave Martha minimal hope, as he did it without sneezing, and aside from the nasality it sounded quite like his normal mile-a-minute babbles. "Haven't you seen it before?"

"No. I haven't gotten around to seeing _every_ wonder of the universe yet. There are seven…"

"Wait, really?"

"…hundred billion or so to work through." He smiled faintly at her. "And I slept most of yesterday, so my schedule's a bit backlogged."

"Well, might as well take something off the list. Do I need a suit?"

He stared blankly at her, then looked down at himself, visibly confused, putting a self-conscious hand to one blue pinstriped lapel. "Do you want one?"

"A _spacesuit_ , Doctor."

"Oh. Oh, no. The moon has its own artificial atmosphere, should be fine."

"Okay."

"Right." He nodded, and looked at the console for a moment as if unsure what to do. Then he reached over and pulled the handbrake with none of his usual enthusiasm. "Right," he repeated. "Good. Brilliant. Off we go, then."

The spaceship wheezed.

She watched in mixed pity and concern as he piloted the TARDIS. Although 'piloting' was definitely a generous description of what she was currently watching unfold. Instead of bounding around the controls as he was wont, right now he was struggling to maintain even an unsteady trot. Whenever he didn't reach a lever in the appropriate time, the floor jerked violently and the TARDIS groaned a protest.

Martha clung to the railing and pretended not to notice.

By the time the room was done shaking, the Doctor was seven different oscillating hues of green. She looked around for a bin or some other receptacle – but luckily, there was no more sick to contend with. He took several deep breaths, eyes pinched shut, hands on his knees.

Then, once his composure was relatively recovered, he retrieved his coat from where it was slung over its normal coral strut like nothing was amiss.

"You okay?" she checked, trailing after him.

"Fine." He shrugged his coat on, then offered her his too-warm hand with a cursory wiggle of his fingers.

She sighed, and accepted.

The doors to the TARDIS creaked open and a blast of cold air swirled in. Martha shivered immediately, startled, the icy breeze cutting into her bare arms. "You didn't say there'd be snow."

"There will be snow," he said absently, and pulled her out the door.

The rudeness, she noted, was evidently still completely intact. She narrowed her eyes at the side of his head, then pressed into his side as much as she dared to shield herself from the biting wind. The sky was bright and pale above – and quite strange, with thirty-five other moons vaguely visible, along with the massive crest of a dark, luminously blue planet. The air felt bracing and crisp in her lungs, carrying the scent of frozen woodland. Glistening white crunched under Martha's boots as she trudged alongside the Doctor.

"I don't see a festival," she noted after a moment through chattering teeth, silently revelling in the unnatural heat radiating from his body as they walked through the sloped snow, navigating rocks and icicle-adorned trees.

"It gets rather crowded, so I parked out the way."

He pointed, and she followed the path of his finger. At the bottom of the hill rested a sleepy little town, glowing orange in the grey fog. Whiffs of music floated up from the town and, even if she did fully disapprove of this trip, the festivities did look quite inviting, if faraway.

"Beautiful," she said.

"Hmm," he agreed. "Hopefully we'll run into some trouble soon."

She gave him a severe look and stopped dead in her tracks.

"No, Martha," he sighed to the question she had yet to ask, "I haven't purposefully landed somewhere dangerous just to orchestrate a crisis."

"You'd better not have."

"Come on, does that sound like something I'd do?"

She raised an eyebrow.

"All right, _maybe_. But not now. This is the Starlight Festival, I promise. Just boring and…visually pleasing. Shiny. There's a party. That's it. Really."

"Good," she said, and continued walking.

"Better than the TARDIS, though, don't you think?"

She snorted. "I think the TARDIS would jettison you out an airlock if she heard you say that."

"Oh, I'd like to see her try," he muttered darkly. At Martha's curious glance, he sighed. "The TARDIS…mutinied, earlier."

She frowned. "Mutinied? Are you two rowing?" The Doctor often got into quarrels with his ship that Martha always seemed to find herself refereeing, and sometimes she felt a bit like an overwrought marriage counsellor. "Again?" she added, making her disapproval clear.

"She trapped me in my room and deadlocked the door this morning. My own ship. I save her from being decommissioned, spend seven-hundred years keeping her maintained. That's the thanks I get."

"She didn't want you to leave either," she pointed out. "She was just trying to keep you safe."

"She was trying to imprison me. One day –"

His nose twitched, his eyes widened a bit, then he gasped and sneezed loudly. There was a delayed and ineffective attempt to angle the sneeze into his arm.

"Doctor!" Martha complained, jerking away. It was far too late, as her face had already been sprayed. She wiped it with the sleeve of his jacket, scrunching her face in distaste. "That is _disgusting_. I've told you to cover your mouth. Make a habit of sneezing on _all_ your companions, do you?"

"One day," he sniffled, fishing a blue handkerchief out of his pocket, "I'm going to sell her for scrap."

"Who? Me or the TARDIS?"

A hint of a smile crossed his lips as he dabbed at his nose, surprisingly daintily for someone who'd just sneezed all over her. "Dunno, maybe both. Weighing the pros and cons. Mostly the pros. Haven't decided yet."

"Well, I'd like to see _you_ try, with either of us." His smile twitched at this. "But really, you should leave her alone, you know. The TARDIS only ever wants to help you, from what I've seen."

"She's a transdimensional meddler. Why do you always take her side, anyway?"

"I don't take sides, Doctor, I see reason."

He rolled his eyes, grumbling something she didn't fully catch about women teaming up against him.

She stared at him. "What was that?"

"Nothing," he replied, a bit too quickly for her tastes. "The town's only a mile off now."

Martha lifted her hand to swat his shoulder.

But suddenly his shoulder was no longer beside her.

The Doctor was gone.

His left Converse had disappeared into the snowy earth beside a tree, and then his entire left side followed as his leg went plunging straight through the ground. He released her hand in favour of yelping in shock and making a hasty grab at a low-hanging tree branch.

Had he been healthy, he probably would have pulled himself up with ease and an irritated expression, then given the loose snow a stern talking-to about swallowing pedestrians. However – try as he might to convince her otherwise – he was not healthy. And the Anderian flu had greatly sapped his strength.

In the space of a second, he lost his grip on the icy, slippery branch. It snapped backwards and whacked him unhelpfully in the centre of his forehead. Snow rushed up his sides and clamped around his waist as his arms wind-milled helplessly. "Martha?" he squeaked, voice gone high and very unmanly.

Heart lurching in fear, she dropped to her knees at once, frantically trying to take hold of his sinking arm; but she was a moment too late.

He vanished into the snow without a trace.


	4. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

When Martha had taken that awe-stricken step into a wooden spaceship nigh on a year ago, she'd had absolutely no idea what she was really getting herself into.

There had been no forewarning, no disclaimer. No fine print to read. No one had prefaced her first trip by telling her that, somewhere down the line, she'd be trapped in a pod hurtling towards the sun. That she'd be stuck as a maid in the abhorrent abomination of a year that was 1913. That she'd be marooned with an oblivious alien in the casually racist clutches of 1969.

Or, as it happened, that her travelling companion would one day get himself infected with the most virulent strain of the flu in the galaxy, insist he wasn't sick, decide that he didn't need her prescribed bedrest – then lose his footing, plummet straight down into several feet of snow, and leave _her_ to save his skin.

"Doctor?!" Sitting on her knees in the snow, heart pounding, she called his name four times over. But of course, because the fates seemed to enjoy punishing her, nothing happened. No shouting or grumbling emanated from within the snow. No heads of brown hair appeared. Not a single movement stirred the land.

That was when she swore heartily and shoved herself up to her feet.

She knew that shouting for help would be pointless. The little town with the glowing lights was, as he'd said, at least a mile off; no one would hear her if she yelled, and bellowing out here would probably trigger a fairly violent avalanche. If she risked going to town to find proper assistance, the air under the snow would run out before she could return. Even with the aid of his respiratory bypass, the Doctor wouldn't survive without oxygen for long. He would suffocate down there.

Just the thought made her feel like vomiting, but the urge fortunately retreated after a few gulps. Focus was essential.

Briefly, Martha closed her eyes and rubbed at her temples, pushing her rising fright and frustration to the back of her mind. No matter how stubborn or irrational he'd been, no matter how much of a massive idiot he was, no matter how much of a colossal ' _I told you so'_ he deserved – she couldn't let anything happen to him.

She had to find a way to get him out on her own. Which posed a problem, because while normally her small stature served her well in a crisis, despite the Doctor's slender build, she knew from experience that he was much heavier than appearances led one to believe. She wasn't nearly strong enough to pull his weight straight up. Considering she wasn't particularly blessed in the height department either, she wasn't even sure she could reach him without risking falling into the loose snow herself. And if she couldn't pull him out, couldn't reach him, there was only one option left.

She had no choice but to start digging.

All kinds of equipment resided in the supply room inside the TARDIS, and Martha knew that among those things had to be some sort of digging tool. She swiftly got to her feet and, so as not to forget where the Doctor had actually fallen through, she poked a stray twig upright into the snow to mark the area.

"I'll be back," she promised him firmly as she did so, on the very slim chance that he could still hear her.

Then she straightened up and, determined, started to run as fast as her legs would carry her towards the time machine in the distance.

Although, perhaps it would be more accurate to say she _attempted_ to run as fast as her legs would carry her. As it turned out, running through slippery snow up an incline against whipping winds was much simpler in theory than it was in practise. Her journey ended up being an exceedingly exasperating combination of jogging, stumbling, tripping, sliding, and falling, all interspersed with some colourful language that the Doctor would probably blushingly reprove her for. Without a jacket, the biting cold impeded her even further, and by the time she reached the sturdy blue box sitting at the peak of the hill, her fingers quivered so violently that she barely managed to get the ice-cold key into the lock.

She pushed into the TARDIS with a shivering exhale, teeth chattering together. Instantly the ship blasted her with a rush of steamy air, for which she was greatly appreciative. The time machine was dimmer than usual, lights flickering every few moments as if the ship knew her pilot was in distress. For the first time, the hum of the ship almost sounded agitated – as if the TARDIS were fretting.

"He's alive," Martha assured the room around her, rubbing her bare arms furiously to warm herself up as she moved quickly across the grating towards the corridor. The worried hum subsided marginally. "Well – he's alive for now, at least. He's fallen into the snow outside and I don't think he's got that much air. I need something to dig him out."

In response, the supply room quickly presented itself in the first corridor, door already open. The TARDIS clearly sensed the urgency of the situation.

Martha stepped into the long, narrow space, flipping on the light as she ventured in. Upon seeing the first few shelves, she realised that this was not going to be easy. Evidently – but unsurprisingly – it seemed that the Doctor had a questionable understanding of what was considered a supply, and what ought to be binned.

The room was an absolute disaster. There were unrecognisable alien contraptions, unfinished gadgets, and spare parts galore. She discovered several toasters in varying states of disrepair (all of which brought back bad memories of 1969 and the Doctor's affinity for systematically massacring household appliances), numerous first-aid items, a welding mask, an expired pack of biscuits, the remains of a sonic screwdriver, a funny looking hat, and, most perturbingly, a rotting head of lettuce.

And in all of that odd, cluttered chaos, there was nothing to dig with. Nothing that even remotely resembled a shovel or a spade. She would have even settled for a trowel at this point, but had no luck in finding one.

Exasperated, Martha came to a stop, breathing heavily, and put her hands on her hips. The room seemed to go on forever, and every single shelf was packed. There was no time to search the whole space. Standing in the midst of the incongruous junk, she let out a deep, frustrated exhale, raking her fingers through her hair. If the Doctor did end up dying out there in the snow, it was his own fault for being an intergalactic hoarder.

Setting her jaw in resolve, she swallowed hard, turned and marched back towards the console room. She wasn't going to give up. That was simply not an option. She'd dig him out with her bare hands if it came to that, frostbite be damned.

Wasting no more time than she already had, she started quickly across the grating towards the door. Her swift strides were broken, however, when her foot caught on something hard and metal. She tripped, and just barely managed to avert her fall with a startled gasp, landing on her knees.

Banging her shin right against the handle of a spade.

The pain of the impact was mostly overshadowed by surging relief. Right beside the spade was a thick parka that looked to be her size, and she quickly donned the latter and picked up the former, shouting her thanks at the TARDIS over her shoulder and running for the door.

Considerably warmer, Martha was much quicker on her feet going downhill. In only a minute she reached the site of the small twig she'd planted – the place where the Doctor was entombed.

She tossed the twig out of the way, and then stabbed the head of the spade into the deceivingly innocent patch of snow.

Every part of her wanted to dig like a maniac. But she knew if she went in all guns blazing, she'd risk whacking the Doctor. As he'd already been brained quite significantly by the tree branch on the way down, she didn't need to make matters worse. She started digging quickly but carefully, the task proving itself much harder than expected. The snow was dense and heavy, and soon her arms burned with each heap of snow she chucked over her shoulder. Even in the cold, as the pit she was digging grew larger, she started to sweat in her parka. But it was life or death (leave it to the Doctor to turn a harmless bout of the flu into a life-or-death situation), so she pressed on, ignoring the complaints of her body.

Fortunately, her work was soon rewarded. She scooped up what felt like the billionth pile of white snow – and out of it fell a limp, pale hand.

Still clutched in it was a blue handkerchief.

Her heart skipped a beat as she dropped the spade and nearly tripped over herself in her haste to slide down into the pit. She landed on her feet, and grabbed the freezing, slippery palm, giving it a tug.

First came an arm. Then a shoulder. One soaking wet red tie, a torso, and finally a head of damp brown hair. She tugged one last time, and suddenly found herself knocked down on her bum, with a lapful of drenched unconscious Time Lord.

"You _idiot_." There was no real force behind the words as she looked down at him, catching her breath from the strain of rigorous digging. Five minutes ago, she'd wanted to kill him – now she just wanted him to wake up so she could hug him within an inch of his life. "You _bloody_ idiot."

The Doctor was nearly as white as the snow he laid in, the flush of his fever all but gone. His freckles stood out in stark relief against his skin, so distinct she could have counted them all individually, and his lips were tinged with a faint and alarming blue. She pressed her cold, trembling fingers to his wrist, and exhaled heavily when she found his pulse. It was thready, a weak quadruple-beat against her fingertips; but it was there. "Don't scare me like that," she told him sternly.

When she had regained a bit of her stamina, Martha manoeuvred the Doctor out of her lap. He slumped face-down in the snow. It was a struggle, but eventually she got him facing up, and wrapped her arms securely around his waist.

She braced herself, then hoisted him up as best she could. Instantly his weight tugged against her, and her muscles – at this point understandably bewildered by all the exercise – resisted. She gritted her teeth and tightened her grip, then began to back up the slope she'd dug into the ground. His long legs trailed in the snow, and she had to make a return trip into the pit to lift them up onto solid ground.

Martha clambered up and knelt beside him, once again short of breath as she brushed his wet fringe from his eyes, sighing for what felt like the millionth time in the past forty hours. He wasn't shivering, instead laying completely still, and she knew that hypothermia – or whatever the Time Lord equivalent of hypothermia was – must have already set in. His clothes were completely soaked from the fifteen-ish minutes he'd spent in the wet, below-zero snow; and as she examined him for injury, she found a very swollen left ankle hiding underneath the hem of his trousers.

She sighed again. Then she linked her arms underneath his and set to dragging him up the hill.

* * *

Martha dreaded to think of how many bruises she'd undoubtedly given the Doctor, pulling him back up to the TARDIS. It seemed as if every rock and root and fallen limb had sinisterly emerged from the snow to bump his arm or crash into his knee, and she'd flinched every time one of his extremities took a blow. She didn't even bother trying to bring the spade with her, as that only would have caused further injury.

But at long last she reached the time machine, unlocking the door and hauling his inexplicably heavy form inside before shutting out the thirty-sixth moon of Khaldor.

The Starlight Festival, it seemed, would have to wait a while yet.

Dragging him through the TARDIS's corridors did feel somewhat inhumane to her. It'd been different outside in the relatively soft snow. In here, the grated floors collided with his injured ankle and bashed his shins so often she was beginning to think that the TARDIS was punishing him on purpose. Despite the fact that the pilot was clearly in need of it, the sickbay was as far away as it always was, and Martha knew that she couldn't pull his weight for much longer – she was already exhausted from digging and bringing him all this way. She'd put out her back if she tried to lug him any further.

Feeling a bit like she was being punished as well (making a mental note to have a strong talk with him about his unhealthy diet of tea and whatever sweets he could get his hands on when she wasn't looking), she settled for taking him back to his bedroom. He was still thoroughly unconscious, and didn't stir the entire time; not even when she'd accidentally stumbled and bumped his head against his own door. With a muttered, sheepish apology, she towed him into room.

It took her a minute or two to figure out how to get him back in the bed without breaking his neck, and she eventually employed the assistance of a chair. After a considerable struggle with his long legs she finally managed to get him safely spread-eagled on his mattress.

Once Martha had achieved that, she stood back, shrugged out of her parka, then bent double and waited for her lungs to stop burning.

She was in exceptional physical shape; but for someone of her size, dragging roughly eleven or twelve stone of limp Time Lord a long distance through brutal winds was no mean feat, even on adrenaline. At this point, she figured if she ever wanted to participate in a triathlon, she was sorted. As she panted and generally tried not to keel over from exertion, her eyes took it upon themselves to inspect the Doctor's prone form. His skin remained unhealthily ashen; and while normally even severe hypothermia wouldn't pose much of a threat to him, with the Anderian flu weakening his body, she didn't know what sort of damage it could do. Getting him warmed up was her top priority – as soon as she could breathe again.

Fortyish seconds later, when her lungs had stopped protesting so vocally, and she went over to his beside.

The first thing to address was obviously his drenched clothing. Before yesterday, Martha would have been terribly embarrassed about undressing him, but as he'd shamelessly sprawled in his pants in front of her for several hours, she felt rather more confident now. She started to efficiently strip him of his soaked clothing, beginning with his long coat and moving on to his tie, jacket, and shirt. She shifted down to his feet to unlace his Converse, tugging them off – and wincing when she saw the swelling mass of his ankle.

Adding the injury to her growing list of things to be concerned about, she went about divesting him of his trousers. She nearly had to wrestle the wet blue fabric down his hips and off his legs. They soon joined the growing pile of damp clothes on the floor, and Martha looked back to him.

She froze when she saw that his pants were just as completely drenched as the rest of his clothing.

For several moments, she hesitated, biting her lip. Then she firmly chastised herself. She was a medical student. The Doctor was in a hypothermic state. And here she was, wasting time debating the ethics of taking his pants off to get him warm.

She likened it to ripping off a Band-Aid. With as much medical detachment as she could muster, she swiftly tugged his shorts down, her gaze carefully averted to the ceiling. A few blind stumbles around his bedroom soon guided her to his wardrobe, where she poked around in various drawers until she located something that felt like a pair of underpants. She returned to the bed with the garment in hand and, keeping her eyes aimed skyward, wriggled his legs into the appropriate holes – desperately trying not to think about what her hands were nearing as she pulled them up. Once the elastic snapped against his hips, Martha risked peeking down to check that the shorts were in place and covering all the bits that necessitated covering.

And then an unexpected snort of laughter escaped her. The awkwardness of the moment dissolved the second she laid eyes on all the little red query marks in front of her. There was no possible explanation for why the Doctor owned a question-mark dotted pair of boxer briefs; but at least it gave her something to tease him mercilessly over later.

When her giggles subsided, she located his pink and blue striped pyjamas from the previous day, discovering they were clean and folded, which was probably courtesy of the TARDIS. She dressed him in them, then pulled his duvet up to his neck, tucking him in. Even though all she had done thus far was remove his wet clothes and put him in some dry ones, she was pleased to see that there was already a bit of colour beginning to return to his face. The blue tinge was gone from his lips, and a faint, splotchy flush was forming across his cheekbones.

She checked his radial pulse again, finding it considerably stronger than before, the quadruple-beat thrumming reassuringly against her fingers. He was recuperating quicker than expected, and it occurred to her that the fever he had when he'd fallen into the snow had probably kept his internal temperature from dropping as low as it would have otherwise. Funnily enough, the Anderian flu had actually done him some good.

Martha knew the Doctor would probably throw a fit if he woke up to find his favourite coat (which, as she'd been reminded five million and a half times, was a gift from Janis Joplin) wrinkled and soggy on the floor, even though it was his fault the coat was wet in the first place. So she dealt with all of his discarded clothes, going out and stuffing them into one of the TARDIS's laundry chutes. She was about to make the long trek to the infirmary afterward to deal with his ankle – but a neat pile of all the things she'd been heading for appeared near her feet before she could do so.

She wasn't sure if the TARDIS was apologising for not moving the infirmary earlier, or merely thanking her for digging the Doctor out of the ground, but either way she was grateful. Gathering up the items, she went back into his room.

He had begun to shiver in her absence, which was a good sign. The effects of hypothermia were lessening, and he was slowly coming around. The first of the items the TARDIS had provided was an electric blanket. Martha quickly plugged it in and draped it over the Doctor to heat him up further. Then, monitoring him out of the corner of her eye, she took a seat at the foot of the bed and carefully lifted his ankle.

She was relieved to see that it looked worse than it actually was. The skin was swollen and tight, bruised in a wide array of purples and reds; but there were no protrusions and it didn't seem like he'd sustained any broken bones. She would normally perform an x-ray on any injury like this, but the Doctor would have to be conscious for that, and he'd almost certainly accuse her of fussing and not allow it. Besides, she wasn't too concerned – she knew that it took some serious force for him to break a bone. A fall into the snow definitely wouldn't have done it. It was most likely only a sprain.

The TARDIS had given her both bandages and an icepack, and she meticulously wrapped the injury in the compression bandage to keep it stable, then tucked an icepack against it to bring down the swelling. She elevated his ankle, fluffing a pillow and propping his foot up as comfortably as she could. She knew no matter what she did, though, it still wasn't going to feel very nice when he woke.

"Martha?"

Her head shot up and her heart jumped at the sound of the faint query. She'd been so absorbed by his injury that she hadn't noticed him stir. A pair of unfocussed brown eyes gazed down at her, blinking slowly.

She quickly abandoned the ankle to move to his side. "Hey," she said gently, keeping the words quiet, knowing he probably had a dreadful headache from the fall, or the oxygen deprivation, or any of the other things he'd subjected himself to. "How are you feeling?"

"Cold." His voice was hoarse and worn, and he didn't look much better than he sounded, either: intensely pale, drained, and exhausted. He shivered like a leaf as he struggled to sit up halfway, peering around, holding the electric blanket to his chest. "I'm in the TARDIS," he realised, teeth audibly chattering.

"Yeah, you are," she confirmed, nodding. "Do you remember what happened?"

Martha knew that he was properly out of it when an answer was not immediately forthcoming. He paused and scratched at his flattened hair, inadvertently ruffling it up, an uncertain expression of deep thought on his face. But then she saw the penny drop, comprehension dawning on his features.

A comprehension that was directly followed by a look of pure horror.

"The snow…?" He inhaled sharply. "Did…did I fall?"

And he seemed so terribly guilty that she couldn't even begin to bring herself to tell him off, or lecture him, not right now. He wasn't off the hook, not by any measure; but her medical instincts overrode her frustration, and currently her only concern was his health. She just wanted him to get some rest. Besides, by the looks of things, he was obviously already punishing himself plenty. Saying anything would just be piling on unneeded stress.

So she suppressed all of the ' _I told you it was a bad idea, you idiot_ 's that threatened on the tip of her tongue, and all the other scathing remarks she had lined up, and sighed instead. "You did. Luckily," she offered a small smile, trying to get that devastated expression off his face, "I found a spade."

"A spade?" This seemed to, if anything, make matters worse. His expression was gradually crumpling. "You dug me out?"

"Didn't have much of a choice," she said lightly. "Left the spade behind, though. Hope you don't need it. I had some other…cargo, to carry."

"Cargo?" he repeated, voice cracking. Martha was startled when she saw the liquid brimming in his eyes. "You saved my l-life?"

For anyone else in the universe that might have seemed like a natural reaction, but for him, it was extremely worrying.

The Doctor wasn't one to tearfully ask if his life had been saved. It was just something he acknowledged, accepted, and promptly moved on from. Moreover, when he was feeling guilty over something – on the rare occasion he actually showed it – there was a lot of huffing and moping about and not making eye contact to contend with. If he was particularly contrite, as he was now, it was puppy dog eyes and profuse apologies. She wasn't sure she'd ever seen him shed a tear over, well, _anything_. This display of emotion was unprecedented, and took her completely off guard.

Then it hit her. Just before he'd fallen into the snow, he had let go of the tree branch. When it had swung back and struck him in the forehead – it must have done so hard enough to concuss him.

And now he was ostensibly saddled with all the messy symptoms that a human might suffer from such a blow. That perfectly explained the confusion and the faltering memory, as well as the disproportionately emotional, weepy reaction she was now receiving.

A weepy reaction which, quite alarmingly, was growing weepier at an exponential rate.

"Doctor," she said softly, feeling very awkward even trying to console him as she reached out to rub his shoulder. He sniffled with extreme effort, flu combined with his tears resulting in a heavily stuffed, drippy nose as he tried to avoid meeting her gaze. "It's okay. Really. I'm fine, you're fine. Everything turned out all right. It's nothing to cry over."

She saw him gulp, watched him bring up the back of his hand to scrub at his face. When he composed himself enough to speak again and looked up at her, his eyes were a remarkable sight – sad, damp, utterly repentant _please-forgive-me_ eyes that entirely steamrolled any irritation she had. She'd have thought it was rehearsed, had he not been concussed. "I'm so _sorry_ , Martha."

Then he made a true sacrifice, and despite his shivering, he deserted the comfort of his warm blanket to reach forward and hug her. And this hug was noticeably different. For once it wasn't a ruse to siphon off her body heat, or a fever-induced cuddle, or one of his spur-of-the-moment, over-before-you-blink twirling bear-hugs. It was a real, earnest, proper embrace.

Martha put her arms around his neck and tried not to melt, with minimal success.

Blimey, he made it _impossible_ to hold a grudge for long.

"It's all right," she said, feeling him shiver in the hug, leaning into her for what warmth she did provide. "I mean, for the record, I'm still _unimaginably_ cross with you. But…I forgive you." And now that he was awake to hear it, she added firmly, "Just don't _ever_ scare me like that again."

"I won't," he promised against her shoulder. The area was becoming suspiciously moist. "I won't. I'm sorry."

A moment passed. Then another. The hug began to stretch into awkward territory.

"You can let me go now, Doctor," she told him.

He did so with a sniffle, settling back under his electric blanket, pulling it up to his chin. She began to move off the bed, anticipating that he'd fall asleep – but his voice soon stopped her. "Martha?"

She looked back at him patiently. "Yes?"

"There's…something I n-need to tell you."

"Oh?" she asked curiously, wondering what might be revealed in a moment of concussion-induced honesty. "What's that?"

"I'm not sure I should say," he whispered, eyes dropping away from hers. "You might be upset."

She shrugged. "That's always a possibility. You can still tell me. What is it?"

Some strained sniffling, as if more tears were being held at bay. And then: "The Anderian flu," arrived the shamed answer, nearly a croak.

"Oh." She raised her eyebrows, unimpressed. "You don't say?"

"I told you Time Lords couldn't catch flu," he breathed, voice strangled. "But I think they can. I did. The Anderians were right. Pompous and annoying and thick, but right. I'm sorry, I...I didn't want you to worry about me again and I should have listened to you, shouldn't have left the TARDIS. But then it was too late, and I fell – and it was cold and dark and you were right, Martha."

He was very clearly running out of breath, but the trembling admission didn't end. "I knew you were right, but I wanted to take you to see the festival, so I did. And now I'm cold. Colder than before. Now I'm cold, and my ankle hurts, and my head hurts, and I _still_ have flu. And we can't go see the festival now, and you're cross with me and – "

All of these words came out in a swift stuttering rush, and Martha thought back to all the times she'd wished the Doctor was more open with her, less distant. Clearly, she needed to be more careful about the things she wished for. Because right now, frankly, he was a bit of a mess. His sentences ran on and kept crashing together as if he was thinking too fast for his mouth to form all the correct sounds; a glaring contrast from his normal crisp syllables and impressive diction and thousand-mile-per-hour rambles. The change would have been amusing had it not been so pitiful.

"Doctor," she interrupted, putting a calming hand on his arm. "Stop talking."

The rest of his rant caught in his throat, and he hiccupped. "I'm s-sorry."

"Stop apologising."

"I'm sor –"

"Hush. Do you want to know what you can do to make it up to me?"

"Nothing," came the wretched reply. "I'm useless. I have flu."

"Yes, you do. But you can still make it up to me. I want you to go to sleep, okay?"

A pause from him, and then a small, somewhat doubtful, "Really?"

"Yep. That's it. Can you do that for me?"

"Okay," he agreed tentatively, sinking into his pillow.

She patted his arm, then got up and returned to where she'd been sitting by his ankle, gathering up the unused supplies.

"Martha?"

"You're supposed to be sleeping," she reminded him, focussing on winding up the roll of bandage.

"I know," he sniffled. "I just wanted to thank you."

"Oh." This caught her attention, and she slowed in her collecting of the supplies. "What for?" she wondered. But there was no reply. She looked over at him.

He was already asleep.


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

The TARDIS was just beginning to shift into its day cycle as she entered his bedroom the next morning. Today, evidently having anticipated her arrival, the door disappeared into the wall before she even had to touch the panel; and she stopped short on the threshold, pausing to appreciate the singularly charming sight that greeted her.

Curled up in the centre of the bed of the bed was a noisily snoring, Time Lord-shaped cocoon of electric blanket. Predictably, rumpled bed head poked out the top of the blanket; and a solitary bandaged foot protruded at an awkward angle from the bottom. For a few seconds Martha remained in the doorway, looking in on him fondly. If she ignored the presence of the oddly positioned foot, it was like the disaster in the snow had never happened at all.

The lingering ache in her shoulders quickly reminded her that it unambiguously _had_ happened, and she was still suffering the consequences. But still, she felt no more real frustration. Her nerves weren't nearly as frayed as they had been yesterday – a hot shower and several hours of sleep had seen to that – and anyway, last night before she had gone to bed, the Doctor had woken concussion-free, and they had thoroughly sorted the issue out.

He had apologised again, much less melodramatically – in his customary, grudgingly apologetic manner, complete with averted gaze and trademarked reluctant muttering – for not listening to her. And after a brief rant on the monumental, unrivalled stupidity of what he'd done (which he had winced through), she had calmed and assured him once more that he was forgiven, stupidity notwithstanding. Then had warned him, on the pain of death, against even _thinking_ about going to the console room until he was healthy.

Because he was in no state to incur her wrath – or walk independently, as it were – her terms had been sullenly agreed to.

Thus now, despite the unpleasant and biting soreness in her abused arms and back, she was willing to let bygones (and stumbles into ten-foot deep snow pits) be bygones and put what had happened in the past. She had even made him his favourite breakfast; which was partly to soften the blow of the terrible ankle pain he was going to wake up in, but was also a representation of her forgiveness, in the form of too-sweet porridge and tea. The tray in her hands held both the hot food and a few separate flu-pertinent items. She moved into his room to sit the tray down on the nightstand, then flicked on the little lamp at his bedside.

The bulb spewed out bright yellow light, and Martha turned to look down at him, feeling another wave of fondness wash over her. The Doctor was quite disarming in sleep: his eyelids flickering in a dream, mouth half-open, drooling ever so slightly onto the pillow. Even if he was mindbogglingly insufferable while awake, she decided she quite liked him unconscious.

"Doctor," she prompted softly. He didn't stir, and so she reached down to pat his cheek to bring him round. After three days she could feel he was in need of a shave, his perpetual five o'clock shadow turned to dark stubble that prickled her fingers. "Doctor," she called, louder. "Time to wake up, sleepyhead."

He mumbled something that, with a hefty imagination, could have been construed as a disgruntled utterance of her name, then snuggled further into the blanket, leaving nothing visible to rouse him except for his untidy hair. She ran her fingers through it. "Time to wake up," she repeated.

The blanket emitted a sleepy grumble. "Five more minutes."

"I have a banana."

He materialised out of the blanket almost instantly, eyes blinking owlishly as he searched for the fruit through his drowsy stupor. When he caught sight of it, his arm emerged from the sheets at once, hand already stretching for the tray.

"Ah, ah," she scolded, swatting the hand down. "Not until you've eaten the rest of your breakfast." The Doctor tried to circumvent her hand, only to be swatted again. He mustered a bleary scowl, which eventually dissolved into a yawn. "Sit up properly and then I'll give you the whole tray," she told him.

Still yawning, he obeyed, unfurling himself from his cocoon of electric blanket and managing to push himself up halfway against the pillow. "Breakfast?" he asked fuzzily, rubbing at his eyes.

"If you don't think the gravity will be a problem," she said.

He seemed to consider it, then the smells of the fresh food reached him and he breathed in appreciatively. "I don't."

"Good." She took the other things – a box of tissues, a thermometer, and a few bottles of assorted pills – off the tray, then placed it in his lap. He managed to sit up a bit straighter, and immediately went for the mug of hot, overly sweet tea, made the way he liked it. "So, how are you feeling? How's the ankle?"

"Fine," he answered, quite shortly, before tipping the mug and taking a great gulp of tea. "Mmm," he hummed, voice muffled as he drank. "Brilliant."

She made silent note of the curt reply – which she knew meant it hurt, and he didn't want to admit it – watching him set his mug down and start in on the bowl of porridge. "Do you still need the blanket? Are you still cold?"

"Nah. Much better, now."

"Okay. I'll unplug it, but I want to just check before you start eating, all right?"

His eyebrows lifted, and the spoonful of porridge in his hand stopped halfway to his mouth. "What?"

"Your temperature," she explained, lifting the thermometer from the table.

He froze and regarded the little plastic tool with substantial horror, suddenly looking very lucid as his eyes widened. "Where is that supposed to be going?" he demanded, voice slipping up an octave.

She bit her lip to keep from laughing. "Doctor…this is an oral thermometer. Not a rectal one. You're not a child." Then she quirked a brow. "But if you _really_ want to start eating your breakfast, I'm sure the TARDIS has –"

"No," he muttered, the tips of his ears turning red. "No."

"Well, say _ahhh,_ then."

He set his spoon down and opened his mouth.

"I don't hear you saying _ahhh_ ," she remarked.

He gave her a look of growing tedium. "Is that necessary?"

"Not if you'd prefer a rectal temperature. They say it _is_ more accurate, you know…"

" _Ahhh,_ " he said gruffly, attempting to glare at her while sticking out his tongue, resulting in a ridiculously comical expression that made her snort. She stuck the silver end of the thermometer underneath his tongue, and it beeped after only a few seconds. The fever had pushed his temperature was well beyond fifteen degrees, but the upside was that hypothermia had gone completely. Satisfied, she pulled the thermometer out his mouth. "Happy?" he asked.

"Not exactly, but you can eat now." She placed the thermometer back in its spot on the table, then reached down to unplug the electric blanket, giving the cord a tug. It powered down silently, and the Doctor shifted his tray to wriggle out from under it, kicking it off. "How is your ankle?"

He shoved half a piece of marmalade-coated toast into his mouth at this very opportune moment. "Fine," he said through the bread, dribbling a hailstorm of crumbs into his lap. "Thought we established that."

"All right. I'll have a look at that too, just to make sure."

"No!" he exclaimed, then very nearly choked on the toast. After several forced gulps of tea he finally stopped coughing, shaking his head furiously. "No, no, my ankle's fine. Doesn't need to be looked at."

"I just want to see how it's healing."

"It's healing like an ankle heals. Nothing to see, very dull and slow and bruisy process. No need to go touching it."

"Is the pain bad?" she asked.

"I said, I'm _fine_."

"I heard what you said," she replied calmly. "I know still it hurts. Is the pain bearable, or is it bad?"

"It's fine. It's just a sprain," he ground out. "And it would be better if you didn't keep _talking_ about it."

"Why's that?"

He forcibly spooned another mouthful of porridge into his mouth. "Because then I have to _think_ about it, Martha."

"So…you're actively trying not to think about it. Which means the pain is bad."

He glowered at her.

"I am going to look at it," she told him. "That's non-negotiable. But I can give you a painkiller before I do. Not aspirin, nothing you're allergic to – the TARDIS showed me a few things earlier in the infirmary. I have them right there." She pointed to the bottles.

He looked; and his demeanour, if possible, soured even more. "Of course she did," he rumbled. "Always going behind my back. Meddling."

"Don't be like that. Had you stayed in your room when she locked you in, your ankle wouldn't be sprained at all right now, would it?"

He was stonily silent.

"I think you should take the painkillers," she continued. "It's going to feel uncomfortable for a while anyway, and there's no sense in putting yourself through that. So if you want to take one…"

"I don't."

"Doctor."

"I said, I don't."

She sighed; she had expected a response similar to that. As long as she'd known him – through all of the injuries she'd patched up for him – the Doctor had always harboured some sort of personal vendetta against pain medications. She figured they were some heinous insult to his grand poohbah Time Lordliness, or something equally ridiculous. But it was going to be fairly painful for her to even touch his ankle without any analgesia, so she tried to convince him.

"Come on," she said. "I know you're a superior Time Lord and uber-evolved and all that rot, but it's just a pill or two, Doctor. Don't tell me you can't swallow a pill."

His jaw clenched. Another poor section of toast was fiercely bitten. "Of course I _can_ swallow a pill. I _will_ not."

"If this stuff is that much trouble, I can just go get you some paracetamol. Even that would help. There is no shame in taking medication if you need it."

"I _don't._ "

"It's going to hurt quite a bit," she warned. "You know it will. I'm not saying that to change your mind, I'm saying it because it's true. Are you sure you can handle it?"

He picked up his banana with an contrived nonchalance that might have been funny under another circumstance, beginning to unpeel it. "Yes."

"Is that a _'yes, I can actually handle it_ ,' or a _'yes, Martha, because I'm a Time Lord and I never feel pain_?'"

Another steely glare. "I can handle it _._ "

"Once I take the compression bandage off it's going to be too late to change your mind."

"Fine."

Martha sighed and got up to sit at the foot of the bed.

* * *

" _Ouch_!"

"Hold still."

"Ow. Ow!"

"Doctor, hold still."

"Bloody hell, are you trying to sprain it again?!"

"I haven't even touched it yet."

"What?"

"I just took the bandage off."

His eyes – previously clamped shut in a cringe – cracked open a smidgen, as if to make sure she weren't lying. He blinked at the sight of her holding the limp bandage. "Oh."

Martha breathed deeply. She was not going to get frustrated with him, not any more. At least she had the easy part over, though it had taken eleven wholly exasperating minutes – four of which were spent simply trying to convince him to let her pick up the pillow his ankle was propped up on – to get his foot in her lap and the bandages undone.

"Well, at least it looks good," she said, the injury finally bared to her eyes. The Doctor could only manage a pained groan in response. His enflamed red bruises had morphed into a purplish shade of deep, unpleasant blue, and were already tinged a bit yellow on the edges. "It's healing well."

"It hurts," he reported miserably.

She gave him an incredulous look. "Fancy that. It's almost like someone very cleverly decided to go swanning about in the snow while they were ill with virulent flu."

He pressed a hand over his eyes. "Catch me doing that again."

"Just be glad that it's healing so fast," she said. "At this rate, you might even be able to walk on it by the end of the week. It would take months for an injury this severe to heal on a human."

"Hmm, yeah," he muttered under his breath. "Amazing what a billion years of evolution will do for you."

"Maybe it's just me, but it seems a little risky to be snide with the person who's holding your severely sprained ankle, doesn't it?"

He shut up immediately.

"I'm going put the bandages back on now," she told him. "This is the unpleasant bit. Are you ready?"

He groaned again.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Just get it over with," he gritted out.

She knew it wasn't going to end well. She took hold of his ankle carefully, as gently as she could, trying to ignore his instant hiss of breath. But before she could even fully lift it up off the pillow:

"Ow, ow, ow – _Martha_!"

The last word was emitted as a stunned yelp. His entire body jolted at the resultant waves of pain, foot bouncing in her lap.

"I've told you to hold still," she repeated sternly. "You're the one who didn't want pain medication. If you don't hold still, you're going to spill your hot tea all over yourself; then it's going to be a second-degree burn instead of a sprained ankle. And I'm telling you right now, Doctor, I will _not_ be putting antibiotic ointment anywhere in… _that_ vicinity." She levelled a pointed stare at his lap.

"It hurts," he whimpered. "I change my mind, all right? Just give me the pills."

She didn't let his foot go. "Stop squirming. I'm putting the bandage back on."

"No, no, no –"

"It'll only take a second." She grabbed the bandage.

"Martha _, wait_ –"

"Hold. Still."

With immense difficulty, and a few muttered curses, she got the bandage wrapped securely again. He bellowed like she was chopping his ankle clean in half rather than just bandaging it, but eventually quieted to breathless panting when she was finished; clutching the bedsheets with a white-knuckled grip, so tightly it was a miracle the stitching didn't tear.

His banana was lying listlessly on the tray, forgotten with only two bites taken. The fact that he'd abandoned his beloved fruit spoke volumes about how much pain he was in. He had gone deathly pale, and his lips were pressed into a thin line.

"Are you about to get sick?" she asked him calmly, prepared to go get the bin.

He was motionless for several seconds, then finally shook his head, letting out a breath.

"I'll take the pills now," he said hoarsely. "Don't you rub it in."

"Wouldn't dream of it. Which pills?"

"Which ones are the strongest?"

* * *

There was little, Martha had once naively believed, that the Doctor was not capable of. He was a force of nature in his own right. He held the majesty of the universe and eternity right at his fingertips. On a whim, he could tune his mind into the greater intricacies of the cosmos at will, feel the flux of the time lines, see the rush and flow of potentialities.

"And he can't swallow a bloody pill!" she exclaimed.

"Oi!" came the immediate garbled protest.

The Doctor was brushing his teeth vigorously, standing – wobbling – in the loo right across from her, leant heavily against the sink to stay upright on one foot. "It isn't _my_ fault if I happen to have superior pharyngeal reflexes."

"Superior," she scoffed. "Yeah, right."

Martha had given him a tiny pill to take with his tea, and the next thing she'd known he was turning red, clutching at his throat and hacking.

By his aggrieved account, the pill was the size of a small submarine, and had nearly blocked his windpipe. The gravity had consequently reared its ugly head, an unfortunate by-product of the blockage.

By her account, he'd choked on a pill a child could have swallowed, gagged, and proceeded to lean over the side of the bed and vomit all over her bare feet.

He wholeheartedly refused to take any responsibility for the accident, of course.

"I have a very sensitive palate," he declared after he spat the toothpaste into the sink. Which was quite amusing to her, after all the unsanitary, most-likely-growing-some-sort-of-deadly-fungus surfaces she'd seen him happily put his entire tongue to. "It's not my fault. My gag reflex just happens to be…aggressively efficient."

She was sitting on the edge of his unused bathtub, trousers rolled up, her feet soaking in soapy water so hot it was nearly painful. "You expect me to believe you've gone nine-hundred years without being able to swallow a pill?"

"No," he sighed, turning off the water. "This is recent."

"What do you mean, it's recent?"

"Different throat. Still untested. At least now I know."

"I'm sorry, did you say _different throat_?"

"Not now, Martha. Are you done in the tub? My ankle still feels like it's detached from my leg, in case you've forgotten."

"You just sicked up on my feet!"

"Yes, and it's very unfortunate for the brilliant breakfast you made for me, but no time to dwell on that now."

"Disgusting," she muttered, scrubbing her feet again for good measure. " _Disgusting_."

"Indeed. Not to alarm you, but there is a very high probability I'm going to lose my balance and collapse in the next fifteen seconds, and most likely inflict significant damage upon my person. But by all means, take your time. See a feature-film, while you're at it. Do a bit of sightseeing. Bring me back a postcar –"

"Oh, shut up," she muttered. Quickly standing and towelling off her feet – silently vowing to wear socks for the rest of her life – Martha moved over to help support his left side before he ended up on the tiled floor.

"Come on," she sighed. "Back to bed. So I can crush up your pills and put them in your tea like you're a five-year-old."

* * *

The label on the medication dictated a dose every four hours, and so it was after that length of time that Martha trudged back into the bedroom that she'd spent majority of her last two days in, holding a bottle and a cup of tea.

It took her a moment to realise the sole occupant of the room wasn't sitting up in bed.

When she'd left him last, he had been propped against his pillow, a tome about temporal physics on his lap; a cup of painkiller-laced tea in one hand as he pushed his glasses up his nose and irritably corrected the flaws in each chapter. She knew that he was generally in good spirits whenever he started correcting books, and so she'd left him to it and had gone to occupy herself.

But now the lumpy sheets appeared unoccupied. A second of gut-plunging panic accosted her, and she worried he'd gone snow-diving again.

Then, belatedly, she registered the shivering outline of a body underneath the duvet.

"Doctor?" Frowning, she sat down the tea and the medication and edged closer. "What are you doing?" There was no reply. Gingerly, Martha took hold of the edge of the duvet and pulled it back.

"No," his voice groaned lowly, as soon as light spilled onto the mattress, and she felt a protesting tug. The duvet was once again pulled securely over his head and flattened to the mattress, effectively concealing him from view.

"What's wrong?" When this question went ignored, she gave his shoulder – or, at least, what felt like his shoulder – a gentle pat. "Come on. How are you feeling?"

"Dying," was the muffled reply from the duvet.

She raised an eyebrow. "You're dying?"

A pitiful answering groan confirmed this.

Martha sighed. "Why do you think you're dying, Doctor?"

"Light hurts." She could see him curl up under the sheets. "Can't move. Can't even… _think_."

"So," she surmised in a drawl, "you have a headache, and you're achy. Not dying, then; just normal flu symptoms, nothing to worry about. What about the ankle?"

"Stop shouting, Martha," he whinged. "Blimey, it's like there's ten of you."

"I'm not shouting. That's the headache. I have some medicine for you, if you want?" No response. "It could help," she added.

"It's too late," came the desolate whisper.

Her hands went to her hips. "Too late for what, exactly?"

"Everything."

"Right," she sighed. "Of course."

There was a long pause. "Martha." The duvet shifted minutely. "It's been…it's been brilliant, travelling with you. And…I know you'll make a brilliant doctor one day. And…"

"If you were actually dying – which you aren't, for the record – it'd be a bit weird to say all these nice things hiding underneath a blanket. Could I have at least have eye contact?" she asked, lips twitching in amusement.

He seemed to debate this for a moment. Then one arm rose under the duvet, lifting it up and creating just a large enough space for her to squeeze through.

She snorted. "Are you serious?"

The arm only lifted higher. It was trembling a bit as it did so – even the simple movement was made into a struggle by flu-induced muscle ache. _What the hell_ , Martha thought with a sigh, and proceeded to climb under the sheet.

She was swamped in sudden warm darkness when he dropped the bedsheet. It was overly humid and predictably cramped beneath the duvet. "Hello," she said. Her eyes adjusted to the absence of light after a moment, and she blinked in surprise. "Oh, you look _terrible_."

"Cheers," he muttered.

It wasn't the most tactful statement she'd ever made, but it was quite true. Even in the darkness she could see how weak and drawn he appeared. His shivers were unremitting, and his hair hung damp, fringe flopping limply in his eyes; eyes heavily underscored by dark circles. The slight bristle forming on his jaw only served to make him look more haggard. "You need to take more of the medication," she said, unconsciously reaching out to touch his hot, clammy forehead.

She knew it was bad when he didn't even bother to push her hand away. "What for?" he asked glumly.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm useless." He sniffled and dropped his eyes to the mattress. "Can't go anywhere, do anything. Can't breathe through my nose. There's no point."

"Don't you start _moping_ ," she scolded. "It's just _flu_."

"The Anderian flu," he mumbled. "Most virulent in the galaxy."

"Yeah, but you're a Time Lord. I thought it was no match for your immune system?" When this didn't seem to lift his spirits, she nudged his arm. "Oh, come _on_. Don't tell me you're going to get done in by a bunged up nose, Doctor. You're just," she shrugged one shoulder, "you're taking a sick day from saving the universe right now. Think of it that way. Everyone takes sick days, yeah?"

He finally looked up at her, and she smiled reassuringly. "And before you know it, you'll be back out there. And the Judoon and the Carrionites and the Daleks and all the rest; you'll be right back to sending them running."

The corners of his lips lifted, just for a moment.

"A sick day from saving the universe," he echoed, and let out a faint chuckle. "I like that."

"Good," she said positively. "Now you just have to like it for seven more days."

This had the effect of abruptly wiping his face clear of any sign of possible optimism, and he groaned instantly. "It's only been _three_ days? It feels like I've been in the TARDIS for a millennium!"

Then he winced as raising his voice made his head throb.

"No real time in the Vortex," she told him placatingly. He stopped clutching his forehead long enough to glare at her. "But never mind that. Will you take your pills, now? I've already got some tea to dissolve them in."

His nose wrinkled straight away at the prospect.

"I'll turn out the light," she tried to persuade him, to no avail. Martha thought for a moment. Then, it came to her, and she sighed heavily. "If you take your medicine," she said reluctantly, "then we can…cuddle."

The Doctor flashed her the first genuine smile she had seen since he'd fallen ill. "Done."


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

One-hundred and sixty-eight metaphorical hours of a sick day ensued.

Martha provided tissues, made enough tea to fill an aquarium, and did a rather good deal of sighing. The Doctor, for his part, was sneezy and extraordinarily irritating.

His mild optimism over having a sick day vanished as soon as the cuddle ended, at which point he reverted to his old ways of the ever-reliable, supremely mature, consistently effective pout.

But when the pouting hadn't gotten him anywhere for once, he'd fallen in a strop; a strop that continued into the next seven days.

He continually alternated between refusing to speak one moment, then refusing to shut up the next; abruptly going from morose silence to enumerating, in unwanted and excessive detail, all the things he would rather do than spend another second in the TARDIS with the flu (a list of activities which ranged from taking an entire bottle of aspirin to snogging an Ood). His melodrama worsened until she found it less annoying than it was simply comedic. Every morning, she was treated to a brief monologue on how he was dying that day: death by phlegm, death by sneeze, death by inactivity, death by boredom. When he hopefully suggested that allowing him access to the console room could potentially extend his lifespan, she'd added death by companion to the list.

All his antics, the stroppiness and grousing and complaining, hinged on that one contention: the console room. The healthier he felt, the more restless he became. Holding the firm belief that she was unjustly barring him from his own console room on no reasonable grounds whatsoever, he spent the majority of his time looking all the part of an exceptionally cross seven-year-old. When his ankle healed on day six – once he'd finished gloating about superior biology long enough to catch his breath – he had announced that now there was really no reason he couldn't go to the console room because look, his ankle was all fixed up.

She still staunchly refused to let him go. And after much failed negotiation, it was on day seven that he tried to break into the console room while she was asleep.

The attempt, of course, had been instantly thwarted by the TARDIS. Martha had later found him on the floor in the corridor, staring at where the archway to the console room had once been (now replaced by a wall of solid brick) as if his life was coming to a horrific and inexorable end.

When she'd involuntarily laughed at the scene, he'd stopped speaking to her altogether until day ten.

On day ten, he was too restive to keep giving her the silent treatment, and paced through the TARDIS like a caged tiger, counting down the minutes until he was 'free from captivity' aloud. Because his fever had broken, his lethargy was gone, and his congestion had nearly cleared up, he was in considerably better spirits. Which meant he naturally went back to insulting the Anderian flu: calling it primitive, insisting that it had never really been any match for his brilliant immune system, and reminding her, just in case she was still confused on the subject, that Time Lords could not get the flu, not properly.

She only managed to get him to sit down once, using the incentive of biscuits – then he was back up, muttering under his breath about how unfairly slow and stupid linear time was (and no, Martha, he didn't care that there was 'no real time in the Time Vortex,' because it still _felt_ like there was, and he wished she'd quit using logic when he was just trying to have a good sulk, and besides, what did she know about temporal physics anyway, nothing, that's what, and excuse him but _which_ one of them was the _Time Lord_ , again?)

But at long last – despite his concern that it never would – day eleven arrived.

With the unfailingly exasperating words: "Rise and shine, Martha Jones!"

Instead of waking up warm, well-rested, and ready to tend to a chronically grumpy flu victim, Martha blinked groggily into consciousness three hours too early. She was met with near-blinding light, an insistent jostling of her shoulder, and the most dazzling, unnervingly wide smile the universe had ever seen.

"Morning," said the Doctor, grinning from ear to ear.

For a moment, she was entirely puzzled, her half-sleeping mind bewilderedly trying to trudge to an explanation for his happiness and his presence; both of which were completely unwelcome. Then, after a second of sleepy confusion, it hit her.

She couldn't decide whether to rejoice at the fact that he was healthy, or weep at the fact that she would never enjoy a full night's rest again.

"What time is it?" she mumbled, blearily rubbing at her eyes.

"No real time in the Vortex," he said pleasantly – and she supposed she rather deserved that, for all the times she had sarcastically tossed those exact words at him over the past ten days.

Then he was pulling back her duvet back with no regard for what she might or might not have been wearing underneath. Luckily, she had grown accustomed to his invasive wake-up calls, and was clad in her usual polka-dotted pyjamas. "No time to laze about in bed either, Martha! You know what they say: no rest for the wicked, or the time traveller."

"No one says that," she muttered, putting a hand over her eyes to shield them from the bright lights.

If the way he was bouncing on his heels was any indication, his enthusiasm was impervious to her sleepy grumpiness. "Come on, up you get! Chop-chop! We've got a full day ahead!"

And apparently she took a second too long follow his instructions, because a moment later Martha found herself being unceremoniously dragged up and out of bed by her wrists as if she weighed nothing at all. An instant later she was being herded out her room, into the corridor. Before her eyes were fully open she was sitting at a table, the steam from a cup of tea wafting into her face.

The Doctor was fiddling with the toaster at the counter, still prattling on. "The universe is the limit, literally," he was saying when she tuned into his ramble. "We could visit the Calindra System, or see how Pluto's coping with unemployment, or fly over the Fifth Mordugal Configuration, or pop in on that life-sized hamster wheel museum on Ganymede, or –"

She tuned out again, entertaining herself by drinking her tea and watching him move about the galley. All evidence he'd ever had the Anderian flu was absent. He was clean-shaven and coiffed again, his hair restored to its rightful astronomical heights; and the pyjamas were finally gone, replaced by the smart blue pinstripes that she most definitely favoured.

Seeing him back to normal made it strange to think she'd ever seen him without the suit and tie and trainers. It was best, really, not to think about that at all. She shoved the very distracting mental image of him post-shower in only pants to the back of her mind where it couldn't disturb her – alongside genetic transfers and too-tight hugs – then smiled at him. In any event, it was good to see him back to tip top shape. The ten days she'd spent looking after him had been no less tiresome, but at least she felt like they'd been worth it, now.

"Toast," he announced suddenly, and a plate clinked down on the table in front of her a moment later, bearing just that. He handed her a banana as well, and she accepted, mostly to spare herself from a lecture on the importance of potassium.

"Thank you," she chuckled, and bit into the toast as he sat down expectantly on the other side of the table. "So, what were you saying about a hamster wheel?"

"Oh, not important. We'll not be visiting today." The Doctor reached out and, seemingly needing something to do with his idle hands, started peeling her banana for her. "We've plenty of time to go there."

"Well, where are we going today, then?"

He offered her a grin, moving slightly in his seat, the excitement evidently keeping him from staying still. "Wherever you want."

"Right," she drawled through her toast, rolling her eyes. "Really, though. Where?"

"I mean it," he insisted. "Wherever you want to go."

"You've tried that on me before, Doctor. It's all 'oh, wherever you want to go, Martha' until I say something you think is boring. Then suddenly we're off to the planet of the one-eyed squid."

"Well." He sat the peeled banana down, angled it towards her – then, apparently unable to help himself, he broke off a sizeable piece and stuck it in his mouth. "I won't take you to another planet with cycloptic cephalopods. Unless you ask, that is."

"And I assure you I am not going to ask." She tilted her head. "Is it really my choice, though? I get to choose?"

"Really," he confirmed – and when she kept looking at him suspiciously, he sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck and leaning back in his chair. "I suppose…it is entirely possible that I haven't been the most, shall we say, _reasonable_ person to deal with over the past few days."

She snorted. "Huh. I hadn't noticed."

"But you still looked out for me," he continued, glossing over her sarcasm, "and really, by all rights, maybe you shouldn't have. I mean, when I slipped in the snow –"

"Oh, so we're calling it a _slip_ now, are we?"

He sighed again. "Point is, you helped me. Even when you were fussing and being extremely annoying," he added, eyebrows raising innocently as she scowled at him. "So I just thought I probably ought to thank you properly, is all."

"Well, how very sweet of you," she said dryly.

He preened a bit. "I thought so too."

Martha rolled her eyes. Things were definitely back to normal.

"So," the Doctor said brightly, drumming his fingers on the table. "Any idea where you'd like to go, or do you need to think it over?"

"I know where I want to go."

He looked pleasantly surprised. "Where?"

"Last I checked," she said, finishing off the last of her tea and folding her arms, "I believe someone still owes me a trip to the Starlight Festival, don't they?"

* * *

It was after her shower – which took entirely too long, according to the Doctor, but apparently give a human an unlimited supply of hot water and what else do you expect – that the TARDIS finally materialised with a grating, grinding wheeze.

In jeans and a parka, her hair down, a knitted hat pulled on just in case, Martha came into the console room. The Doctor was at the controls wearing his usual coat, with the addition of a ridiculously long striped scarf wound about his neck. He was fiddling with a set of buttons, peering at the monitor; but she noticed that with his free hand, he kept absently petting the coral edge of the console every few moments. The TARDIS's hum sounded as it always had, a warm droning sound; but somehow it instantly made her think of the satisfied purr of a smug cat being stroked. She smiled. It seemed the row between ship and pilot was over, if temporarily.

"We've landed?" she checked as she came to stand at the console.

"Indeed we have," he said, looking up. "You finally ready?"

She raised an eyebrow. "As long as you don't think I need to go fetch a spade?"

He glared, and Martha smiled innocently, patting his shoulder as she walked by him. "What are you waiting for?" She started down the ramp. "Let's go."

The thirty-sixth moon of Khaldor looked exactly as it had when she'd last seen it, blizzardy and freezing and serene. The Doctor joined her outside after a moment, closing the TARDIS door behind him then jamming his hands in his pockets. "Shall we?" he asked, tipping his head towards the little glowing town.

"Yep," she agreed. "Just make sure you watch your step."

"Oi!"

* * *

The entire town had been converted for the celebration. Christmas lights were laced through the streets, glittering in bright white and blue as people danced and drank. Everyone was wearing their own little strings of light and carrying glow sticks about as the grey sky darkened. Upbeat chords of music filtered through voices and laughter, and Martha was happily eating her fourth – or possibly fifth, or sixth, or seventh, but who was counting anyway – frosted pastry, talking to her newfound mates.

The partygoers were quite a diverse lot (she'd seen everything from scales to horns to beaks, and there were even a few sentient clouds of gas happily drifting by) and after an hour she'd made friends with an bipedal robin, two men who were honeybees from the neck up, and a squishy gooey slime creature with a beautiful singing voice. She'd never thought she could find any common ground with someone born centuries ahead of her on a different planet, but as it turned out, even a thousand years into the future and a hundred million miles away, there were still problems she could relate to. Coffee prices were ridiculously high everywhere; alien politicians couldn't sort anything out either; taxes continued to steadily rise universe-wide; traffic in hyperspace was positively horrendous on Fridays. And the squishy gooey slime creature – or Lucky, as she preferred to be called – had been flirting with her best mate for almost six centuries, and the ridiculous woman still hadn't noticed.

Needless to say, it was Lucky with whom she connected with the most. Between their conversations, shared frustrations – and three rounds of drinks that frothed like beer and tasted like pineapple – they played party games. Martha had just won pin the whisk on the Dalek for the third time when the Doctor materialised at her shoulder. He'd wandered off towards a cake-eating contest twenty minutes ago, and she smiled up at him. He had a string of lights tied around his head, snow in his hair, and a fine dusting of blue sprinkles on his face and shirt.

The bee men, the upright robin, and Lucky all giggled, then said (buzzed, squawked, and sang, respectively) that they were going off to get more drinks, inviting the two along. Neither Martha nor the Doctor were interested, and so they both waved the group off amicably.

"What trouble did you go and get yourself into?" she asked, sitting down on a nearby bench.

"Oh, you know." He grinned, face flushed from the cold as he dropped down next to her on the bench. "The usual. Won the cake-eating contest. Lost a three-legged race. Also saved a species from extinction."

"Extinction?"

"Lovely family of beetle ants were trying to enjoy the festivities. Last of their kind – can you believe they nearly got stepped on?"

"Who nearly stepped on them?"

The Doctor paused, hesitated, then embarrassedly rubbed at the back of his neck. "The snow was high," he muttered. "Visibility was low, couldn't see them all too well. But what matters is, I picked them up and gave them a nice, safe napkin to sit on. Extinction averted."

She shook her head with a chuckle and continued to eat her pastry.

"Just out of curiosity," he said, amusement creeping into his voice, "what number pastry is that, Martha?"

"Oh, leave off. If you can competitively eat cake, I can have a pastry or two."

"Or eight."

She swatted him.

There was a pause. "You all right?"

He was giving her a very strange look. "Of course I am."

"You're shivering," he told her.

"No, I'm not."

He grabbed her wrist, and her hand – which had indeed been trembling as she held her pastry – stilled.

"Well…it's cold," she pointed out, shrugging. "Normal response."

"You're _really_ shivering."

She gave him a look. "And as I recall, you spent the last ten days shivering too, Doctor. Let's not split hairs."

He frowned and, of course, ignored this. Then he rather weirdly stuck out his tongue (stained blue by the sprinkles), and the frown deepened. "Temperature's dropped nearly eight degrees since we arrived earlier."

"I can handle the cold. Dug you out of the snow, didn't I?"

This went ignored as well. "Let's find someplace to get you warm. Can't have you catching your death out here, Martha Jones."

She rolled her eyes. "You said there'd be a sky full of stars. Best visibility in the galaxy for twenty whole minutes, celestial phenomenon. The whole _point_ of Starlight Festival. That's what you said. We're not leaving."

"Martha…"

"I'm fine. How long until the clouds clear up?"

He sighed. "Sixteen minutes, eleven seconds."

"Well, then, we can leave after that. I thought you were supposed to be thanking me?"

"Fine. We can stay."

"Good."

"Come here."

She blinked, and stared at him. He'd lifted his arm to invite her into his side, and the gesture was so shocking it took a few moments to register in her brain. "I'm sorry?"

"You're clearly rubbish at maintaining homeostasis," he shrugged. "Not your fault, humans are generally inefficient. But I really can't have you catching your death, your mother'll regenerate me. So c'mere."

Absently wondering if she'd eaten too many pastries and gone into a diabetic coma, Martha brushed the powdered sugar from her hand, then awkwardly scooted closer to him. A beat passed.

He sighed a bit irritably, and put his arm around her, pulling her right against him. Equally pleased and startled, Martha hesitated for a moment before resting her head on his shoulder.

"Better?" he asked.

It wasn't, obviously. Cuddling with the Doctor whilst he was healthy was just about as effective as huddling up to a corpse. For a split second she almost missed his fever. The little body heat he did possess was so insubstantial she could just barely feel it through her thick coat. Worse, he was getting blue sprinkles all over her clothes; the tassels of his striped scarf, unpleasantly damp from snow, were resting in her lap; and his shoulder was just a bit too pointy to be a comfortable headrest.

But of course, she didn't tell him any of this. He was voluntarily holding her close, without a fever-induced ulterior motive – which was something so delightfully bizarre she couldn't dare ruin it. Of course, she knew better than to read anything into it. The Doctor was trying to warm her up in his oblivious alien way, and that was all it was to him. It didn't mean _nothing_ , per se, not anymore; but what very little meaning it did have, he'd never say, and she'd never know.

That was the way things were. Martha knew one day she'd probably have to do something about the problem. Today was not that day, and thus all she did was relax against him. His breath was faintly warm in her ear, he smelled sweet – like sugar and frosting – and, cold or not, he was just as wonderfully huggable as always.

"Better," she said.

He gave her arm a brisk rub, and Martha smiled.

Down the street, the robin and the honeybees were returning with full tankards in hand, lead by Lucky. When Lucky saw her huddled against the Doctor's side, folded halfway into his coat, her squishy arms flapped and she stopped the robin and the bees in their tracks, diverting them to something in the distance. They quite drunkenly went towards whatever she'd pointed at; and Lucky gave Martha what probably constituted a thumbs-up and a wink before squelching off to join the others.

* * *

"We need to go back to the TARDIS."

"If you say that again, I will kick you."

Martha's arms were wrapped tightly around herself, her parka zipped to the neck, her hat pulled down to her eyebrows. The Doctor had sacrificed his scarf to her and she was bundled in that, too – and if she'd have asked, he might have admitted that, aside from the worrying aspect of it, she looked quite adorable swathed in all that winter gear, dark eyes scowling out from the small sliver of face between scarf and hair and hat.

She was far too cross to ask, however, and so all he said was, "Something's wrong."

"Yeah, it's bloody freezing, that's what's wrong. You're ruining it."

"Martha…"

It was nearly silent, and people were beginning to glance at them. Martha balled her hands into fists. "I'm trying to look at the stars," she said, lowering her voice to an peeved whisper, "and you're ruining it."

The clouds had parted eighteen minutes ago, and revealed the most astonishingly beautiful starry sky Martha had ever seen. But by that time her shivers were no longer ignorable, she couldn't breathe through her nose, and overall she was really beginning to feel unaccountably dreadful. She was also beginning to regret having all eight of those pastries. Now, she was cross that she was feeling rotten, cross that the Doctor had been right to worry, and equally cross that she couldn't even appreciate what she had wanted to come here for. This made for rather a lot of crossness in one five-foot-three human female, and it seemed to exude from her parka-clad form.

"There's only a few minutes left," the Doctor whispered back. "It doesn't get any better than this, you're not going to miss anything. Besides, it'll happen again in a hundred years, we can just pop ahead and catch it again."

Everyone had left the town to gather on the outskirts, the place which afforded the clearest view of the sky. Unimpeded by buildings or trees, the starlight glowed intensely blue, so bright it almost looked like daytime. The snow they were sitting in was tinted an eerie shade of rich cobalt – as were the Doctor's expressive features as he peered concernedly down at her, pinpricks of light reflecting down into his eyes. The result was delightful, making him look all sorts of ethereal and striking and enigmatic; but she couldn't appreciate that, either. She glared at him, and hissed, "What you're doing right now has got to be ten times worse than talking in a cinema, you know."

Apparently the Doctor respected silence in cinemas, if nothing else, as he quieted down for the remaining sixtyish seconds. He settled for hovering less than an inch away from her shoulder like a concerned mother hen – which effectively, but unsurprisingly, ruined the handsome-and-mysterious aura for her.

The cloud cover began to return, and the dazzling starlight abruptly faded into darkness, only broken by glow sticks and light necklaces. People started applauding; and the Doctor spoke right at her ear. "How do you feel?" he asked.

"Rather like someone just talked their way through a once-in-a-lifetime phenomena, but somehow I don't think that feeling is exclusive to me." He put his hand against her forehead, and she smacked it away with her glow stick. "I told you I was fine, didn't I?"

"You've gone up two degrees," he said. "Thirty-nine point six. You're coming down with something, Martha."

"Rubbish. You gave me an antiviral eight days ago."

"This isn't from me, it's from being here for too long."

"I was out here before – digging you out the snow, in case you've forgotten – and I didn't get ill then."

"That was different. You weren't exposed for hours."

"You can't get ill from cold weather!"

"On Earth, you can't. On the thirty-sixth moon of Khaldor, though…" He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I _knew_ I should have checked the atmosphere. It's always the artificial ones."

"Hold on. You're going to catch the flu again?"

"Time Lords," he began – but seemed to think better of it when he saw her death glare. "No, I'm not going to catch the flu again. The Anderian flu is the only strain I'm not immune to. It's you." He flinched. "You've caught the flu."

"I've caught the flu," she echoed slowly.

"I'm sorry."

Martha stared at him for a moment, and suddenly felt the inexplicable urge to laugh hysterically. Laughing seemed like less work than losing her temper, so she did.

He seemed very worried by this response. "Martha?"

She laughed until she fell over onto her back, and laid in the snow. The Doctor looked increasingly concerned, then puzzled; then he seemed torn between asking if she'd gone insane and being amused by her giggles.

"Maybe…maybe we should be heading back to the TARDIS now," he suggested warily, reaching out for her hand. "Get you into the infirmary."

"I'm okay," she assured him once the fit of laughter had passed, breathless. "I've not gone mad, don't worry."

He smiled, a bit bewildered. "You seem to be taking this…well."

"The alternative is that I tell you it's all your fault, and act just as stubborn and insufferable as you were when you had the flu."

The smile faded into a wince.

"I'd say this is better." Martha shrugged as best she could sprawled on her back in the snow; then sneezed and rubbed at her nose. "We're going back to the TARDIS?"

"Of course we are. We can't go running about while you're ill."

"What? You'll not go anywhere until I'm better?"

"No."

She gave him a look. "Right."

"I mean it, really."

"Really? Is it because I looked after you and you want to return the favour…or because you just don't trust me not to touch the console while you're gone?"

"Well, obviously," he drawled. "Can't let you touch the console. Take my eye off you for one moment, you'll go fiddling with levers, sneezing on things and blowing up the universe. And we can't have that happening. So I s'pose I'll have to look after you for a few days."

"Are you sure you're capable of that?"

"Completely. I looked after a goldfish once, this can't be much different."

She tossed her glow stick at him and he dodged, then grinned and reached down to help her up, pulling her out the snow. Martha got to her feet, brushed the flurries off his scarf. Then she thought for a moment, tilting her head.

"Does this mean that I get a sick day too?" she asked.

"Yes it does, Martha Jones." He smiled lopsidedly at her. "Everyone takes sick days sometimes."

Then the Doctor took her hand, his palm cold around her too-warm one – and together they turned away from the glowing town towards the hill, where the TARDIS waited patiently for them in the snow.


End file.
